LIBRARY 

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OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 

Mr.    H.    H.    Kil iani 


U.CSB  LIBRARY 


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H.    DE    BALZAC 


THE    COMEDIE    HUMAINE 


-^^ 


'■■  S^S'^M' 


PIERRETTE   AND    HE HAD   SKETCHED   THEIR   CHILDISH 

DREAMS   ON   THE   VEIL   OF  THE   FUTURE. 


H.    DE     BALZAC 


THE    CELIBATES 


AND  OTHER    STORIES 


TRANSLATED    BY 

CLARA    BELL 

w:th  a  preface  by 

GEORGE    SAINTSBURY 


^ 


PHILADELPHIA 

The  Gebbie  Publishing  Co.,  Ltd. 
1898 


CONTENTS. 


PREFACE ix 

THE   CELIBATES: 

I.   PIERRETTE I 

II.   THE   ABBfe   BIROTTEAU I59 

COLONEL    CHABERT 235 

THE    VENDETTA 307 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PIERRETTE    AND    HE HAD   SKETCHED   THEIR  CHILDISH  DREAMS 

ON  THE  VEIL  OF  THE  FUTURE  (p.  52)      .         .         .       Frontispiece 

PAGB 

"  I   HAVE  BROUGHT   YOU    A    COUSIN    OF    YOURS,   AND     HERE    SHE 

BE" 52 

BATHILDE   PUT    HER    PRETTY    FOOT    ON    THE    BAR    OF    THE 

FENDER 107 

"THE  MISCHIEF  IS   DONE,    MADAME,"    SAID  THE  ABBfe  .  .      224 

LUCIEN  TOOK   HIS   FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN  BY  THE  ARM  .  .      3IO 

Drawn  by  W.  Boucher. 


PREFACE. 

**Les  CfeLiBATAiRES  "  (The  Celibates),  the  longest  number 
of  the  original  "  Comedie  "  under  a  single  title,  next  to  "  Il- 
lusions Perdues  "  (Lost  Illusions),  is  not,  like  that  book,  con- 
nected by  any  unity  of  story.  Indeed,  the  general  bond  of 
union  is  pretty  weak ;  and  though  it  is  quite  true  that  bache- 
lors and  old  maids  are  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  all  three,* 
it  would  be  rather  hard  to  establish  any  other  bond  of  con- 
nection, and  it  is  rather  unlikely  that  any  one  unprompted 
would  fix  on  this  as  a  sufficient  ground  of  partnership. 

Two  at  least  of  the  component  parts,  however,  are  of  very 
high  excellence.  I  do  not  myself  think  that  "Pierrette," 
which  opens  the  series,  is  quite  the  equal  of  its  companions. 
Written,  as  it  was,  for  Countess  Anna  de  Hanska,  Balzac's 
step-daughter  of  the  future,  while  she  was  still  very  young,  it 
partakes  necessarily  of  the  rather  elaborate  artificiality  of  all 
attempts  to  suit  the  young  person,  of  French  attempts  in  par- 
ticular, and  it  may  perhaps  be  said  of  Balzac's  attempts  most 
of  all.  It  belongs,  in  a  way,  to  the  Arcis  series — the  series 
which  also  includes  the  fine  "  Tenebreuse  Affaire,"  and  the 
unfinished  "Depute  d' Arcis  " — but  is  not  very  closely  con- 
nected therewith.  The  picture  of  the  actual  "Celibates,"  the 
brother  and  sister  Rogron,  with  which  it  opens,  is  in  one  of 
Balzac's  best-known  styles,  and  is  executed  with  all  his  usual 
mastery  both  of  the  minute  and  of  the  at  least  partially  repul- 
sive, showing  also  that  strange  knowledge  of  the  bourgeois  de 
Paris  which,  somehow  or  other,  he  seems  to  have  attained  by 

*The  third  part,  "A  Bachelor's  Establishment,"   constitutes  the  title 
story  of  another  volume. 

(ix) 


X  PREFACE. 

dint  of  unknown  foregatherings  in  his  ten  years  of  apprentice- 
ship. 

The  other  and  shorter  constituent  of  the  series,  "  The  Abb6 
Birotteau,"  is  certainly  on  a  higher  level,  and  has  attracted 
the  most  magnificent  eulogies  from  some  of  the  novelist's 
admirers.  I  think  both  Mr.  Henry  James  and  Mr.  Wedmore 
have  singled  out  this  little  piece  for  detailed  and  elaborate 
praise,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  a  happy  example  of  a 
kind  in  which  the  author  excelled.  The  opening,  with  its 
evident  but  not  obtruded  remembrance  of  the  old  and  well- 
founded  superstition — derived  from  the  universal  belief  in 
some  form  of  Nemesis — that  an  extraordinary  sense  of  happi- 
ness, good-luck,  or  anything  of  the  kind,  is  a  precursor  of 
misfortune,  and  calls  for  some  instant  act  of  sacrifice  or 
humiliation,  is  very  striking;  and  the  working  out  of  the  ven- 
geance of  the  goddess  by  the  very  ungoddess-like  though 
feminine  hand  of  Mademoiselle  Gamard  has  much  that  is 
commendable.  Nothing  in  its  well-examplcd  kind  is  better 
touched  off  than  the  Listomere  coterie,  from  the  shrewdness 
of  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne  to  the  selfishness  of  Madame  de 
Listomdre.  I  do  not  know  that  the  old  maid  herself — cat, 
and  far  worse  than  cat  as  she  is — is  at  all  exaggerated,  and 
the  sketch  of  the  coveted  appartement  and  its  ill-fated  mobilier 
is  about  as  good  as  it  can  be.  And  the  battle  between 
Madame  de  Listomere  and  the  Abbe  Troubert,  which  has 
served  as  a  model  for  many  similar  things,  has,  if  it  has  often 
been  equaled,  not  often  been  surpassed. 

"  The  Abbe  Birotteau  "  strikes  some  good  judges  as  of  ex- 
ceptional character,  while  no  one  can  refuse  it  merit  in  a  high 
degree.  I  should  not,  except  for  the  opening,  place  it  in  the 
very  highest  class  of  the  "  Comedie,"  but  it  is  high  beyond 
all  doubt  in  the  second. 

"Pierrette,"  which  was  earlier  called  "Pierrette  Lorrain," 
was  issued  in  1840,  first  in  the  Steele,  and  then  in  volume 
form,  published  by  Souverain.     In  both  issues  it  had  nine 


PREFACE.  xi 

chapter  or  book  divisions  with  headings.  With  the  other 
"  Celibates  "  it  entered  the  "  Comddie  "as  a  "  Scdne  de  la 
Vie  de  Province  "  in  1843. 

"The  Abbe  Birotteau"  (which  Balzac  had  at  one  time 
intended  to  call  by  the  name  of  the  cure's  enemy,  and  which 
at  first  was  simply  called  by  the  general  title  "Les  Celiba- 
taires")  is  much  older  than  its  companions,  and  appeared  in 
1832  in  the  "  Scenes  de  la  Vie  Privee."  It  was  soon  properly 
shifted  to  the  "Vie  de  Province,"  and  as  such  in  due  time 
joined  the  "Comedie,"  bearing  the  title  of  "Le  Cur6  de 
Tours." 

The  short  stories  added  to  the  volume  are  contemporaneous 
in  point  of  time,  and  for  this  reason  have  been  placed  in  their 
present  position.  *'  Colonel  Chabert,"  which  would  well 
have  deserved  a  place  in  those  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  Militaire," 
so  scantily  represented  in  the  "Comedie,"  has  other  attrac- 
tions. It  reminds  us  of  Balzac's  sojourn  in  the  tents  of  Themis, 
and  of  the  knowledge  that  he  brought  therefrom  \  it  gives  an 
example  of  his  affection  for  the  idee  fixe,  for  the  man  with  a 
mania ;  and  it  is  also  no  inconsiderable  example  of  his  nature. 

"The  Vendetta"  ranked  with  the  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  Pri- 
vee" from  their  first  edition,  but  had  an  earlier  separate  pub- 
lication in  part,  for  it  is  one  of  those  stories  which  Balzac 
originally  divided  into  chapters  and  afterwards  printed  with- 
out them.  The  first  of  these,  which  appeared  in  the  Sil- 
houette of  April,  1830,  was  entitled  "L'Atelier,"  and  the 
others  were  "La  Desobeissance,"  "La  Mariage,"  and  "La 
Chatiment."  G.  S. 


THE  CELIBATES. 
I. 

PIERRETTE. 
To  Mademoiselle  Anna  de  Hanska. 

Dear  Child : —  You,  the  joy  of  a  whole  house,  you 
whose  white  or  rose-colored  cape  flutters  in  the 
summer  like  a  will-o'-the-wisp  through  the  arbors  of 
Wierzchownia,  followed  by  the  wistful  eyes  of  your 
father  and  mother — how  can  I  dedicate  to  you  a 
tale  full  of  sadness  ?  But  is  it  not  well  to  tell  you 
of  sorrows  such  as  a  girl  so  fondly  loved  as  you  are 
will  never  know  ?  For  some  day  your  fair  hands 
may  take  them  comfort.  It  is  so  difficult,  Anna,  to 
find  in  the  picture  of  our  manners  any  incident  worthy 
to  meet  your  eye,  that  an  author  has  no  choice ;  but 
perhaps  you  may  discern  how  happy  you  are  from 
reading  this  tale,  sent  by 

Your  old  friend y 

De  Balzac. 

In  October,  1827,  at  break  of  day,  a  youth  of  about  sixteen, 
whose  dress  proclaimed  him  to  be  what  modern  phraseology 
insolently  calls  a  proletarian,  was  standing  on  a  little  square 
in  the  lower  part  of  the  town  of  Provins.  At  this  early  hour 
he  could,  without  being  observed,  study  the  various  houses 
set  round  the  piazza  in  an  oblong  square.  The  mills  on  the 
streams  of  Provins  were  already  at  work.  Their  noise, 
repeated  by  the  echoes  from  the  upper  town,  and  harmonizing 
with  the  sharp  air  and  the  clear  freshness  of  the  morning, 

*(1) 


2  THE   CELIBATES. 

bewrayed  the  perfect  silence — so  complete  that  the  clatter  of 
a  diligence  was  audible  still  a  league  away  on  the  high-road. 

The  two  longer  rows  of  houses,  divided  by  an  arched 
avenue  of  lime  trees,  are  artless  in  style,  confessing  the  peace- 
ful and  circumscribed  life  of  the  townsfolk.  In  this  part  of 
the  town  there  are  no  signs  of  trade.  At  that  time  there  was 
hardly  a  carriage-gate  suggesting  the  luxury  of  the  rich — or, 
if  there  were,  it  rarely  turned  on  its  hinges — excepting  that 
of  Monsieur  Martener,  a  doctor  who  was  obliged  to  keep  and 
use  a  cab.  Some  of  the  fronts  were  graced  by  a  long  vine  stem, 
others  with  climbing  roses  growing  up  to  the  second  floor, 
and  scenting  the  windows  with  their  large  scattered  bunches 
of  flowers.  One  end  of  this  square  almost  joins  the  High 
Street  of  the  lower  town  ;  the  other  end  is  shut  in  by  a  street 
parallel  with  the  High  Street,  and  the  gardens  beyond  run  down 
to  one  of  the  two  rivers  that  water  the  valley  of  Provins. 

At  this  end,  the  quietest  part  of  the  piazza,  the  young 
workman  recognized  the  house  that  had  been  described  to 
him — a  front  of  white  stone,  scored  with  seams  to  represent 
joints  in  the  masonry,  and  windows  with  light  iron  balconies, 
decorated  with  rosettes  painted  yellow,  and  closed  with  gray 
Venetian  shutters.  Above  this  front  —  a  first  floor  and  a 
second  floor  only — three  attic  windows  pierce  a  slate-roof,  and 
on  one  of  the  gables  twirls  a  brand-new  weather-cock.  This 
modern  weather-cock  represents  a  sportsman  aiming  at  a  hare. 
The  front  door  is  reached  by  three  stone  steps.  On  one  side 
of  the  door  an  end  of  leaden  pipe  spouts  dirty  water  into  a 
little  gutter,  revealing  the  kitchen  ;  on  the  other,  two  windows, 
carefully  guarded  by  gray  wooden  shutters  in  which  heart- 
shaped  holes  are  cut  to  admit  a  little  light,  seemed  to  our 
youth  to  be  those  of  the  dining-room.  In  the  basement 
secured  by  the  three  steps,  under  each  window  is  an  air-open- 
ing into  the  cellars,  closed  by  painted  iron  shutters  pierced 
with  holes  in  a  pattern.  Everything  was  then  quite  new. 
An  observer,  looking  at  this  house  freshly  repaired,  its  still 


PIERRETTE.  3 

raw  splendor  contrasting  with  the  antique  aspect  of  all  the 
rest,  would  at  once  have  seen  in  it  the  mean  ideas  and  perfect 
contentment  of  a  retired  tradesman. 

The  young  fellow  gazed  at  every  detail  with  an  expression 
of  pleasure  mingled  with  sadness  ;  his  eyes  wandered  from  the 
kitchen  to  the  garret  with  a  look  that  denoted  meditation. 
The  pink  gleams  of  sunshine  showed  in  one  of  the  attic  win- 
dows a  cotton  curtain  which  was  wanting  to  the  others.  Then 
the  lad's  face  brightened  completely ;  he  withdrew  a  few  steps, 
leaned  his  back  against  a  lime  tree,  and  sang,  in  the  drawling 
tones  peculiar  to  the  natives  of  the  west,  this  ballad  of  Brit- 
tany, published  by  Bruguiere,  a  composer  to  whom  we  owe 
some  charming  airs.  In  Brittany  the  young  swains  of  the 
villages  sing  this  song  to  newly-married  couples  on  their 
wedding-day : 

"  We  come  to  wish  you  every  happiness. 
To  th'  niaister  at  your  side. 
As  well  as  to  the  bride. 

"  You,  mistress  bride,  are  bound  for  life  and  death. 
With  a  bright  golden  chain. 
That  none  may  break  in  twain. 

"Now  you  to  fairs  and  junkets  go  no  more  ; 
Nay,  you  must  stay  at  home. 
While  we  may  dance  and  roam. 

"And  do  you  know  how  trusty  you  must  be. 
And  faithful  to  your  mate. 
To  love  him  rathe  and  late  ? 

"Then  take  this  posy  I  have  made  for  you. 
Alack  !  for  happy  hours 
Must  perish  like  these  flowers" 

This  national  air,  as  sweet  as  that  arranged  by  Chateaubriand 
to  the  words  Ma  soeur,  te  souvient-il  encore  ?  sung  in  a  little 


4  THE   CELIBATES. 

town  of  La  Brie  in  Champagne,  could  not  fail  to  arouse  irre- 
sistible memories  in  a  native  of  Brittany,  so  faithfully  does  it 
paint  the  manners,  the  simplicity,  the  scenery  of  that  noble 
old  province.  There  is  in  it  an  intangible  melancholy,  caused 
by  the  realities  of  life,  which  is  deeply  touching.  And  is  not 
this  power  to  awaken  a  whole  world  of  grave,  sweet,  sad 
things  by  a  familiar  and  often  cheerful  strain  characteristic 
of  those  popular  airs  which  are  the  superstitions  of  music,  if 
we  accept  the  word  superstition  as  meaning  what  remains  from 
the  ruin  of  nations,  the  flotsam  left  by  revolutions  ? 

As  he  ended  the  first  verse,  the  workman,  who  never  took 
his  eyes  off  the  curtain  in  the  attic,  saw  no  one  astir.  While 
he  was  singing  the  second,  it  moved  a  little.  As  he  sang 
the  words,  "Take  this  posy,"  a  young  girl's  face  was  seen. 
A  fair  hand  cautiously  opened  the  window,  and  the  girl 
nodded  to  the  wanderer  as  he  ended  with  the  melancholy 
reflection  contained  in  the  two  last  lines  : 

*'  Alack  !  for  happy  hours 
Must  perish  like  these  flowers" 

The  lad  suddenly  took  from  under  his  jacket,  and  held  up  to 
her,  a  golden-yellow  spray  of  a  flower  very  common  in  Brit- 
tany, which  he  had  picked  no  doubt  in  a  field  in  La  Brie, 
where  it  is  somewhat  rare — the  flower  of  the  furze. 

"  Why,  is  it  you,  Brigaut  ?  "  said  the  girl  in  a  low  voice. 

•'Yes,  Pierrette,  yes.  I  am  living  in  Paris  ;  I  am  walking 
about  France ;  but  I  might  settle  down  here,  since  you  are 
here." 

At  this  moment  the  window-fastening  of  the  room  on  the 
first  floor,  below  Pierrette's,  was  heard  to  creak.  The  girl 
showed  the  greatest  alarm,  and  said  to  Brigaut,  "  Fly  !  " 

The  young  fellow  jumped  like  a  frog  to  a  bend  in  the  street, 
round  a  mill,  before  entering  the  wider  street  that  is  the  artery 
of  the  lower  town  ;  but  in  spite  of  his  agility,  his  hobnailed 


PIERRETTE.  6 

shoes,  ringing  on  the  paving-cobbles  of  Provins,  made  a  noise 
easily  distinguished  from  the  music  of  the  mill,  and  heard  by 
the  individual  who  opened  the  window. 

This  person  was  a  woman.  No  man  ever  tears  himself  from 
the  delights  of  his  morning  slumbers  to  listen  to  a  minstrel  in  a 
round  jacket.  None  but  a  maid  is  roused  by  a  love  song.  And 
this  was  a  maid — and  an  old  maid.  When  she  had  thrown 
open  her  shutters  with  the  action  of  a  bat,  she  looked  about 
her  on  all  sides,  and  faintly  heard  Brigaut's  steps  as  he  made 
his  escape.  Is  there  on  earth  anything  more  hideous  than  the 
matutinal  apparition  of  an  ugly  old  maid  at  her  window?  Of 
all  the  grotesque  spectacles  that  are  the  amusement  of  travelers 
as  they  go  through  little  towns,  is  it  not  the  most  unpleasing? 
It  is  too  depressing,  too  repulsive  to  be  laughed  at. 

This  particular  old  maid,  whose  ear  was  so  keen,  appeared 
bereft  of  the  artifices  of  all  kinds  that  she  used  to  improve 
herself;  she  had  no  front  of  false  hair,  and  no  collar.  Her 
headgear  was  the  frightful  little  caul  of  black  sarsnet  which 
old  women  draw  over  their  skull,  showing  beyond  her  night- 
cap, which  had  been  pushed  aside  in  her  sleep.  This  untidi- 
ness gave  her  head  the  sinister  appearance  ascribed  by  painters 
to  witches.  The  temples,  ears,  and  nape,  scarcely  concealed, 
betrayed  their  withered  leanness,  the  coarse  wrinkles  were  con- 
spicuous for  a  redness  that  did  not  charm  the  eye,  and  that 
was  thrown  into  relief  by  the  comparative  whiteness  of  a  bed- 
gown tied  at  the  throat  with  twisted  tapes.  The  gaps  where 
this  bedgown  fell  open  revealed  a  chest  like  that  of  some 
old  peasant-woman  careless  of  her  ugliness.  The  fleshless 
arm  might  have  been  a  stick  covered  with  stuff.  Seen  at  the 
window,  the  lady  appeared  tall  by  reason  of  the  strength  and 
breadth  of  her  face,  which  reminded  the  spectator  of  the  ex- 
travagant size  of  some  Swiss  countenances.  The  chief  char- 
acteristic of  the  features,  which  presented  a  singular  lack  of 
harmony,  was  a  hardness  of  line,  a  harshness  of  coloring,  and 
a  lack  of  feeling  in  the  expression  which  would  have  filled  a 


6  THE   CELIBATES. 

physiognomist  with  disgust.  These  peculiarities,  visible  now, 
were  habitually  modified  by  a  sort  of  business  smile,  and  a 
vulgar  stupidity  which  aped  good-nature  so  successfully  that 
the  people  among  whom  she  lived  might  easily  have  supposed 
her  to  be  a  kind  woman. 

She  and  her  brother  shared  the  ownership  of  this  house. 
The  brother  was  sleeping  so  soundly  in  his  room  that  the 
opera-house  orchestra  would  not  have  roused  him ;  and  the 
power  of  that  orchestra  is  famous !  The  old  maid  put  her 
head  out  of  the  window,  and  raised  her  eyes  to  that  of  the 
attic — eyes  of  a  cold,  pale  blue,  with  short  lashes  set  in  lids 
that  were  almost  always  swollen.  She  tried  to  see  Pierrette  j 
but  recognizing  the  futility  of  the  attempt,  she  withdrew  into 
her  room  with  a  movement  not  unlike  that  of  a  tortoise  hiding 
its  head  after  putting  it  out  of  its  shell.  The  shutters  were 
closed  again,  and  the  silence  of  the  square  was  no  more  dis- 
turbed but  by  peasants  coming  into  the  town,  or  early  risers. 
When  there  is  an  old  maid  in  the  house  a  watch-dog  is  not 
needed  ;  not  the  smallest  event  occurs  without  her  seeing  it, 
commenting  on  it,  and  deducing  every  possible  consequence. 
Thus  this  incident  was  destined  to  give  rise  to  serious  infer- 
ences, and  to  be  the  opening  of  one  of  those  obscure  dramas 
which  are  played  out  in  the  family,  but  which  are  none  the 
less  terrible  for  being  unseen — if  indeed  the  name  of  drama 
may  be  applied  to  this  tragedy  of  home-life. 

Pierrette  did  not  get  into  bed  again.  To  her  Brigaut's 
arrival  was  an  event  of  immense  importance.  During  the 
night — the  Eden  of  the  wretched — she  escaped  from  the  an- 
noyances and  fault-finding  she  had  to  endure  all  day.  Like  the 
hero  of  some  German  or  Russian  ballad,  to  her  sleep  seemed 
a  happy  life,  and  the  day  a  bad  dream.  This  morning,  for 
the  first  time  in  three  years,  she  had  had  a  happy  waking. 
The  memories  of  infancy  had  sweetly  sung  their  poetry  to  her 
soul.  She  had  heard  the  first  verse  in  her  dreams ;  the  sec- 
ond had  roused  her  with  a  start ;  at  the  third  she  had  doubted 


PIERRETTE.  7 

— the  unfortunate  are  of  the  school  of  Saint  Thomas;  at  the 
fourth  verse,  standing  at  her  window,  barefoot,  and  in  her 
shift,  she  had  recognized  Brigaut,  the  friend  of  her  earlier 
childhood. 

Yes,  that  was  indeed  the  short  square  jacket  with  quaint 
little  tails  and  pockets  swinging  just  over  the  hips,  the  classical 
blue-cloth  jacket  of  the  Breton ;  the  coarse-knit  waistcoat, 
the  linen  shirt  buttoned  with  a  golden  heart,  the  wide-rolled 
collar,  the  earrings,  heavy  shoes,  trousers  of  blue  drill,  mot- 
tled in  streaks  of  lighter  shades  ;  in  short,  all  the  humble  and 
durable  items  of  a  poor  Breton's  costume.  The  large  white 
horn  buttons  of  the  jacket  and  waistcoat  had  set  Pierrette's 
heart  beating.  At  the  sight  of  the  branch  of  furze  the  tears 
had  started  to  her  eyes  ;  then  a  spasm  of  terror  clutched  her 
heart,  crushing  the  flowers  of  remembrance  that  had  blossomed 
for  a  moment.  It  struck  her  that  her  cousin  might  have  heard 
her  rise  and  go  to  the  window.  She  knew  the  old  woman, 
and  made  the  signal  of  alarm  to  Brigaut,  which  the  poor  boy 
had  hastened  to  obey  without  understanding  it.  Does  not 
this  instinctive  obedience  betray  one  of  those  innocent  and 
mastering  affections  such  as  are  to  be  seen  once  in  an  age,  on 
this  earth  where  they  bloom,  like  the  aloe  trees  on  Isola 
Bella,  but  two  or  three  times  in  a  century.  Any  one  seeing 
Brigaut  fly  would  have  admired  the  artless  heroism  of  a  most 
artless  love. 

Jacques  Brigaut  was  worthy  of  Pierrette  Lorrain,  who  was 
now  nearly  fourteen — two  children  !  Pierrette  could  not  help 
weeping  as  she  saw  him  take  to  his  heels  with  the  terror 
inspired  by  her  warning  gesture. 

She  then  sat  down  in  a  rickety  armchair,  in  front  of  a 
looking-glass  above  a  little  table.  On  this  she  set  her  elbows, 
and  remained  pensive  for  an  hour,  trying  to  recall  Le  Marais, 
the  hamlet  of  Pen-Hoel,  the  adventurous  voyages  on  a  pond 
in  a  boat  untied  from  an  old  willow  tree  by  little  Jacques  ; 
then  the  old  faces — her  grandmother  and  grandfather,  her 


8  THE   CELIBATES. 

mother's  look  of  suffering,  and  General  Brigaut's  handsome 
head  \  a  whole  childhood  of  careless  joy  !  And  this  again 
was  a  dream — the  lights  of  happiness  against  a  gray  back- 
ground. 

She  had  fine  light-brown  hair,  all  in  disorder,  under  a  little 
nightcap  tumbled  in  her  sleep,  a  little  cambric  cap  with  frills 
that  she  herself  had  made.  On  each  side  curls  fell  over  her 
temples,  escaping  from  their  gray  papers.  At  the  back  of  her 
head  a  thick  plait  hung  down  to  her  shoulders.  The  exces- 
sive pallor  of  her  face  showed  that  she  was  a  victim  to  a  girlish 
ailment  to  which  medical  science  gives  the  pretty  name  of 
chlorosis,  which  robs  the  blood  of  its  natural  hue,  disturbing 
the  appetite,  and  betraying  much  disorderment  of  the  whole 
system.  This  waxen  hue  was  apparent  in  all  the  flesh-tints. 
The  whiteness  of  her  neck  and  shoulders,  the  colorlessness  of 
an  etiolated  plant,  accounted  for  the  thinness  of  her  arms 
crossed  in  front  of  her.  Pierrette's  feet  even  looked  weak  and 
shrunken  by  disease ;  her  shift,  falling  only  to  her  calf,  showed 
the  relaxed  sinews,  blue  veins,  and  bloodless  muscles.  As 
the  cold  air  chilled  her,  her  lips  turned  purple.  The  mourn- 
ful smile  that  parted  her  fairly  delicate  mouth  showed  teeth 
of  ivory  whiteness,  even  and  small,  pretty  transparent  teeth, 
in  harmony  with  well-shaped  ears  and  a  nose  that  was  elegant, 
if  a  little  sharp;  her  face,  though  perfectly  round,  was  very 
sweet.  All  the  life  of  this  charming  countenance  lay  in  the 
eyes ;  the  iris,  of  a  bright  snuff-brown  mottled  with  black, 
shone  with  golden  lights  round  a  deep  bright  retina.  Pier- 
rette ought  to  have  been  gay;  she  was  sad.  Her  vanished 
gaiety  lingered  in  the  vivid  modeling  of  her  eyes,  in  the  in- 
genuous form  of  her  brow,  and  the  moulding  of  her  short  chin. 
The  long  eyelashes  lay  like  brushes  on  the  cheeks  worn  by 
debility;  the  whiteness,  too  lavishly  diffused,  gave  great 
purity  to  the  lines  and  features  of  her  countenance.  The  ear 
was  a  little  masterpiece  of  modeling ;  it  might  have  been  of 
marble. 


PIERRETTE.  9 

Pierrette  suflfered  in  many  ways.  Perhaps  you  would  like 
to  have  her  story  ?     Here  it  is. 

Pierrette's  mother  was  a  Demoiselle  Auffray  of  Provins,  half- 
sister  to  Madame  Rogron,  the  mother  of  the  present  owners 
of  this  house.  Monsieur  Auffray,  after  marrying  for  the  first 
time  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  took  a  second  wife  at  the  age  of 
sixty-nine.  The  child  of  his  first  marriage  was  an  only 
daughter,  ugly  enough,  who,  when  she  was  sixteen,  married 
an  innkeeper  of  Provins  named  Rogron.  By  his  second  mar- 
riage old  Auffray  had  another  daughter,  but  she  was  very 
pretty.  Thus  the  quaint  result  was  an  enormous  difference  in 
age  between  Monsieur  Auffray's  two  daughters.  The  child  of 
his  first  wife  was  fifty  when  the  second  was  born.  By  the 
time  her  father  gave  her  a  sister  Madame  Rogron  had  two 
children  of  her  own,  both  of  full  age. 

The  uxorious  old  man's  younger  child  was  married  for 
love,  at  eighteen,  to  a  Breton  officer  named  Lorrain,  a  captain 
in  the  Imperial  Guard.  Love  often  begets  ambition.  The 
captain,  eager  to  get  his  colonelcy,  exchanged  into  the  line. 
While  the  major  and  his  wife,  comfortable  enough  with  the 
allowance  given  them  by  Monsieur  and  Madame  Auffray,  were 
living  handsomely  in  Paris,  or  running  about  Germany  as  the 
Emperor's  wars  or  truces  might  guide  them,  old  Auffray,  a 
retired  grocer  at  Provins,  died  suddenly,  before  he  had  time 
to  make  his  will.  The  good  man's  estate  was  so  cleverly 
manipulated  by  the  innkeeper  and  his  wife  that  they  absorbed 
the  larger  part  of  it,  leaving  to  old  Auffray's  widow  no  more 
than  the  house  in  the  little  square  and  a  few  acres  of  land. 
This  widow,  little  Madame  Lorrain's  mother,  was  but  eight- 
and-thirty  when  her  husband  died.  Like  many  other  widows, 
she  had  an  unwholesome  wish  to  marry  again.  She  sold  to 
her  stepdaughter,  old  Madame  Rogron,  the  land  and  house 
she  had  inherited  under  her  marriage  settlement,  to  marry  a 
young  doctor  named  Neraud,  who  ran  through  her  fortune, 
and  she  died  of  grief  in  great  poverty  two  years  afterwards. 


10  THE   CELIBATES. 

Thus  Madame  Lorraia's  share  of  the  Auffray  property  had 
in  great  part  disappeared,  being  reduced  to  about  eight  thou- 
sand francs. 

Major  Lorrain  died  on  the  field  of  honor  at  Montereau, 
leaving  his  widow,   then  one-and-twenty,   burthened  with  a 
little  girl  fourteen  months  old,  and  with  no  fortune  but  the 
pension  she  could  claim  from  the  government,  and  whatever 
money  might  come  to  her  from  Monsieur  and  Madame  Lor- 
rain, tradespeople  at  Pen-Hoel,  a  town  of  La  Vendee,  in  the 
district  known  as  Le  Marais.     These  Lorrains,  the  parents  of 
the  deceased  officer,  and  Pierrette's  paternal  grandfather  and 
grandmother,    sold    building-timber,    slates,    tiles,    cornices, 
pipes,  and  the  like.     Their  business  was  a  poor  one,  either 
from  their  incapacity  or  from  ill  luck,  and  brought  them  in  a 
bare  living.      The  failure  of  the  great  house  of  Colinet  at 
Nantes,  brought  about  by  the  events  of  1814,  which  caused  a 
sudden  fall  in  the  price  of  colonial  produce,  resulted  in  a  loss 
to  them  of  eighty  thousand  francs  they  had  placed  on  deposit. 
Their   daughter-in-law  was   therefore  warmly   received  ;    the 
major's  widow  brought  with  her  a  pension  of  eight  hundred 
francs,  an  enormous  sum  at  Pen-Hoel.     When  her  half-sister 
and  brother-in-law  Rogron  sent  her  the  eight  thousand  francs 
due  to  her,  after  endless  formalities,  prolonged  by  distance, 
she  placed  the  money  in  the  Lorrain's  hands,  taking  a  mort- 
gage, however,  on  a  little  house  they  owned  at  Nantes,  let  for 
a  hundred  crowns  a  year,  and  worth,  perhaps,  ten  thousand 
francs. 

Young  Madame  Lorrain  died  there  after  her  mother's 
second  and  luckless  marriage,  in  18 19,  and  almost  at  the  same 
time  as  her  mother.  This  daughter  of  the  old  man  and  his 
young  wife  was  small,  fragile,  and  delicate  ;  the  damp  air  of  Le 
Marais  did  not  agree  with  her.  Her  husband's  family,  eager 
to  keep  her  there,  persuaded  her  that  nowhere  else  in  the 
world  would  she  find  a  place  healthier  or  pleasanter  than  Le 
Marais,  the  scene  of  Charette's  exploits.     She  was  so  well 


PIERRETTE.  11 

taken  care  of,    nursed,  and  coaxed  that  her  death  brought 
honor  to  the  Lorrains. 

Some  persons  asserted  that  Brigaut,  an  old  Vendeen,  one 
of  those  men  of  iron  who  served  under  Charette,  Mercier, 
the  Marquis  de  Montauran,  and  the  Baron  du  Gu6nic  in  the 
wars  against  the  Republic,  counted  for  much  in  young  Madame 
Lorrain's  submission.  If  this  were  so,  it  was  certainly  for  the 
sake  of  a  most  loving  and  devoted  soul.  And,  indeed,  all 
Pen-Hoel  could  see  that  Brigaut,  respectfully  designated  as 
the  major — having  held  that  rank  in  the  Royalist  army — 
spent  his  days  and  his  evenings  in  the  Lorrains'  sitting-room 
by  the  side  of  the  Emperor's  major's  widow.  Towards  the 
end  the  cure  of  Pen-Hoel  allowed  himself  to  speak  of  this 
matter  to  old  Madame  Lorrain ;  he  begged  her  to  persuade 
her  daughter-in-law  to  marry  Brigaut,  promising  to  get  him  an 
appointment  as  justice  of  the  peace  to  the  district  of  Pen- 
Hoel,  by  the  intervention  of  the  Vicomte  de  Kergarouet. 
But  the  poor  woman's  death  made  the  scheme  useless. 

Pierrette  remained  with  her  grandparents,  who  owed  her 
four  hundred  francs  a  year,  naturally  spent  on  her  mainte- 
nance. The  old  people,  now  less  and  less  fit  for  business,  had 
an  active  and  pushing  rival  in  trade,  whom  they  could  only 
abuse,  without  doing  anything  to  protect  themselves.  The 
major,  their  friend  and  adviser,  died  six  months  after  young 
Madame  Lorrain,  perhaps  of  grief,  or  perhaps  of  his  wounds  ; 
he  had  had  seven-and-twenty.  Their  bad  neighbor,  as  a  good 
man  of  business,  now  aimed  at  ruining  his  rivals,  so  as  to 
extinguish  all  competition.  He  got  the  Lorrains  to  borrow 
on  their  note  of  hand,  foreseeing  that  they  could  never  pay, 
and  so  forced  them  in  their  old  age  to  become  bankrupt. 
Pierrette's  mortgage  was  second  to  a  mortgage  held  by  her 
grandmother,  who  clung  to  her  rights  to  secure  a  morsel 
of  bread  for  her  husband.  The  house  at  Nantes  was  sold  for 
nine  thousand  five  hundred  francs,  and  the  costs  came  to 
fifteen  hundred  francs.      The  remaining  eight  thousand  francs 


12  THE    CELIBATES. 

came  to  Madame  Lorrain,  who  invested  them  in  a  mortgage 
in  order  to  live  at  Nantes  in  a  sort  of  almshouse,  like  that  of 
Sainte-Perine  in  Paris,  called  Saint-Jacques,  where  the  two 
worthy  old  people  found  food  and  lodging  at  a  very  moderate 
rate. 

As  it  was  impossible  that  they  should  take  with  them  their 
little  destitute  grandchild,  the  old  Lorrains  bethought  them 
of  her  uncle  and  aunt  Rogron,  to  whom  they  wrote.  The 
Rogrons  of  Provins  were  dead.  Thus  the  letter  from  the 
Lorrains  to  the  Rogrons  would  seem  to  be  lost.  But  if  there 
is  anything  here  below  which  can  take  the  place  of  Provi- 
dence, is  it  not  the  General  Postoffice  ?  The  genius  of  the 
post,  immeasurably  superior  to  that  of  the  public,  outdoes  in 
inventiveness  the  imagination  of  the  most  brilliant  jiovelist. 
As  soon  as  the  post  has  charge  of  a  letter,  worth,  on  delivery, 
from  three  to  ten  sous,  if  it  fails  at  once  to  find  him  or  her 
to  whom  it  should  be  delivered,  it  displays  a  mercenary  solic- 
itude which  has  no  parallel  but  in  the  boldest  duns.  The 
post  comes,  goes,  hunts  through  the  eighty-six  departments. 
Difficulties  incite  the  genius  of  its  officials,  who,  not  unfre- 
quently,  are  men  of  letters,  and  who  then  throw  themselves 
into  the  pursuit  with  the  ardor  of  the  mathematicians  at  the 
National  Observatory  ;  they  rummage  the  kingdom.  At  the 
faintest  gleam  of  hope  the  Paris  offices  are  on  the  alert  again. 
You  often  sit  amazed  as  you  inspect  the  scrawls  that  meander 
over  the  letter,  back  and  front — the  glorious  evidence  of  the 
administrative  perseverance  that  animates  the  postoffice.  If 
a  man  were  to  undertake  what  the  post  has  accomplished, 
he  would  have  spent  ten  thousand  francs  in  traveling,  in  time 
and  in  money,  to  recover  twelve  sous.  The  post  certainly 
has  more  intelligence  than  it  conveys. 

The  letter  written  by  the  Lorrains  to  Monsieur  Rogron, 
who  had  been  dead  a  year,  was  transmitted  by  the  post  to 
Monsieur  Rogron,  his  son,  a  haberdasher  in  the  Rue  Saint- 
Denis,   Paris.      This  is  where  the  genius  of   the   postoffice 


PIERRETTE.  13 

shines.  An  heir  is  always  more  or  less  puzzled  to  know 
whether  he  has  really  scraped  up  the  whole  of  his  inheritance, 
whether  he  has  not  forgotten  some  debt  or  some  fragments. 
The  Revenue  guesses  everything;  it  even  reads  character. 
A  letter  addressed  to  old  Rogron  of  Provins  was  bound  to 
pique  the  curiosity  of  Rogron,  junior,  of  Paris,  or  of  Made- 
moiselle Rogron,  his  heirs.  So  the  Revenue  earned  its  sixty 
centimes. 

The  Rogrons,  towards  whom  the  Lorrains  held  out  be- 
seeching hands,  though  they  were  in  despair  at  having  to  part 
from  their  granddaughter,  thus  became  the  arbiters  of  Pier- 
rette Lorrain's  fate.  It  is  indispensable,  therefore,  to  give 
some  account  of  their  antecedents  and  their  character. 

Old  Rogron,  the  innkeeper  at  Provins,  on  whom  Old  Auf- 
fray  had  bestowed  the  child  of  his  first  marriage,  was  hot- 
faced,  with  a  purple-veined  nose,  and  cheeks  which  Bacchus 
had  overlaid  with  his  crimson  and  bulbous  blossoms.  Though 
stout,  short,  and  pot-bellied,  with  stumpy  legs  and  heavy 
hands,  he  had  all  the  shrewdness  of  the  Swiss  innkeeper,  re- 
sembling that  race.  His  face  remotely  suggested  a  vast  hail- 
stricken  vineyard.  Certainly  he  was  not  handsome ;  but  his 
wife  was  like  him.  Never  were  a  better  matched  couple. 
Rogron  liked  good  living,  and  to  have  pretty  girls  to  wait  on 
him.  He  was  one  of  the  sect  of  egoists  whose  ways  are 
brutal,  and  who  give  themselves  up  to  their  vices  and  do  their 
will  in  the  face  of  Israel.  Greedy,  mercenary,  and  by  no 
means  refined,  obliged  to  be  the  purveyor  to  his  own  fancies, 
he  ate  up  all  he  earned  till  his  teeth  failed  him.  Then  avarice 
remained.  In  his  old  age  he  sold  his  inn,  collected,  as  we 
have  seen,  all  his  father-in-law's  leavings,  and  retired  to  the 
little  house  in  the  square,  which  he  bought  for  a  piece  of 
bread  from  old  Auflfray's  widow,  Pierrette's  grandmother. 

Rogron  and  his  wife  owned  about  two  thousand  francs  a 
year,  derived  from  the  letting  of  twenty-seven  plots  of  land 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Provins,  and  the  interest  on  the  price 


14  THE   CELIBATES. 

of  their  inn,  which  they  had  sold  for  twenty  thousand  francs. 
Old  Auffray's  house,  though  in  a  very  bad  state,  was  used  as 
it  was  for  a  dwelling  by  the  innkeepers,  who  avoided  repair- 
ing it  as  they  would  have  shunned  the  plague ;  old  rats  love 
cracks  and  ruins.  The  retired  publican,  taking  a  fancy  for 
gardening,  spent  his  savings  in  adding  to  his  garden ;  he 
extended  it  to  the  bank  of  the  river,  making  a  long  square 
shut  in  by  two  walls,  and  ending  with  a  stone  embankment, 
below  which  the  water  plants,  left  to  run  wild,  displayed  their 
abundant  flowers. 

Early  in  their  married  life  the  Rogron  couple  had  a  son 
and  a  daughter,  with  two  years  between  them ;  everything 
degenerates ;  their  children  were  hideous.  Put  out  to  nurse 
in  the  country  as  cheaply  as  possible,  these  unhappy  little 
ones  came  home  with  the  wretched  training  of  village  life, 
having  cried  long  and  often  for  their  foster-mother,  who  went 
to  work  in  the  fields,  and  who  left  them  meanwhile  shut  up 
in  one  of  the  dark,  damp,  low  rooms  which  form  the  dwelling 
of  the  French  peasant.  By  this  process  the  children's  features 
grew  thick,  and  their  voices  harsh ;  they  were  far  from  flat- 
tering their  mother's  vanity,  and  she  tried  to  correct  them  of 
their  bad  habits  by  a  severity  which,  by  comparison  with  their 
father's,  seemed  tenderness  itself.  They  were  left  to  play  in 
the  yards,  stables,  and  outhouses  of  the  inn,  or  to  run  about 
the  town ;  they  were  sometimes  whipped ;  sometimes  they 
were  sent  to  their  grandfather  Auff"ray,  who  loved  them  little. 
This  injustice  was  one  of  the  reasons  that  encouraged  the 
Rogrons  to  secure  a  large  share  of  the  "old  rascal's"  leav- 
ings. Meanwhile,  however,  Rogron  sent  his  boy  to  school ; 
and  he  paid  a  man,  one  of  his  carters,  to  save  the  lad  from 
the  conscription.  As  soon  as  his  daughter  Sylvie  was  twelve 
years  old,  he  sent  her  to  Paris  as  an  apprentice  in  a  house  of 
business.  Two  years  later,  his  son,  Jer6me-Denis,  was  packed 
off  by  the  same  road.  When  his  friends  the  carriers,  who 
were  his  allies,  or  the  inn  customers  asked  him  what  he  meant 


PIERRETTE.  15 

to  do  with  his  children,  old  Rogron  explained  his  plans  with 
a  brevity  which  had  this  advantage  over  the  statements  of 
most  fathers,  that  it  was  frank — 

"  When  they  are  of  an  age  to  understand  me,  I  shall  just 
give  them  a  kick  you  know  where,  saying,  *  Be  off  and  make 
your  fortune,*  "  he  would  reply,  as  he  drank,  or  wiped  his 
mouth  with  the  back  of  his  hand.  Then  looking  at  the  in- 
quirer with  a  knowing  wink,  "Ha,  ha!"  he  would  add, 
**  they  are  not  greater  fools  than  I  am.  My  father  gave  me 
three  kicks,  I  shall  give  them  but  one.  He  put  a  louis  into 
my  hand,  I  will  give  them  ten  ;  so  they  will  be  better  off 
than  I  was.  That's  the  right  way.  And  after  I  am  gone, 
what  is  left  will  be  left ;  the  notaries  will  find  them  fast 
enough.  A  pretty  joke,  indeed,  if  I  am  to  keep  myself  short 
for  the  children's  sake  !  They  owe  their  being  to  me ;  I  have 
brought  them  up  ;  I  ask  nothing  of  them  ;  they  have  not  paid 
me  back,  heh,  neighbor?  I  began  life  as  a  carter,  and  that 
did  not  hinder  me  from  marrying  that  old  rascal  Auffray's 
daughter." 

Sylvie  was  placed  as  an  apprentice,  with  a  premium  of  a 
hundred  crowns  for  her  board,  with  some  tradespeople  in  the 
Rue  Saint-Denis,  natives  of  Provins.  Two  years  later  she 
was  paying  her  way;  though  she  earned  no  money,  her 
parents  had  nothing  to  pay  for  her  food  and  lodging.  This, 
in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  is  called  being  "at  par."  Two  years 
later  Sylvie  was  earning  a  hundred  crowns  a  year.  In  the 
course  of  that  time  her  mother  had  sent  her  a  hundred  francs 
for  pocket-money.  Thus,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  Mademoi- 
selle Sylvie  Rogron  was  independent.  When  she  was  twenty, 
she  was  second  "  young  lady  "  in  the  house  of  Julliard,  raw- 
silk  merchants,  at  the  sign  of  the  Ver  chinois  (or  Silkworm), 
in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis. 

The  history  of  the  brother  was  like  the  sister's.  Little 
Jerome-Denis  Rogron  was  placed  with  one  of  the  largest 
wholesale  mercers  in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  the  Maison  Gu^pin 


16  THE   CELIBATES. 

at  the  Trots  Quenouilles.  While  Sylvie,  at  twenty-one,  was 
forewoman  with  a  thousand  francs  a  year,  Jerome-Denis, 
better  served  by  luck,  was,  at  eighteen,  head  store-clerk,  earn- 
ing twelve  hundred,  with  the  Guepins,  also  natives  of  Provins. 
The  brother  and  sister  met  every  Sunday  and  holiday,  and 
spent  the  day  in  cheap  amusements.  They  dined  outside 
Paris ;  they  went  to  St.  Cloud,  Meudon,  Belleville,  or  Vin- 
cennes. 

At  the  end  of  1815  they  united  the  money  they  had  earned 
by  the  sweat  of  their  brow,  and  bought  of  Madame  Guenee 
the  business  and  good-will  of  a  famous  house,  the  Soeur  de 
famille,  one  of  the  best-known  retail  haberdashers.  The 
sister  kept  the  cash,  the  store,  and  the  accounts;  the  brother 
was  both  buyer  and  head-clerk,  as  Sylvie  was  for  some  time 
her  own  forewoman.  In  1821,  after  five  years'  hard  work, 
competition  had  become  so  lively  in  the  haberdashery  busi- 
ness that  the  brother  and  sister  had  scarcely  been  able  to  pay 
off  the  purchase-money  and  keep  up  the  reputation  of  the 
house. 

Though  Sylvie  Rogron  was  at  this  time  but  forty,  her  ugli- 
ness, her  constant  toil,  and  a  peculiarly  crabbed  expression, 
arising  as  much  from  the  shape  of  her  features  as  from  her 
anxieties,  made  her  look  like  a  woman  of  fifty.  Jerome- 
Denis  Rogron,  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight,  had  the  most  idiotic 
face  that  ever  bent  over  a  counter  to  a  customer.  His  low 
forehead,  crushed  by  fatigue,  was  seamed  by  three  arid  fur- 
rows. His  scanty  gray  hair,  cut  very  short,  suggested  the 
unutterable  stupidity  of  a  cold-blooded  animal  ;  in  the  gaze 
of  his  blue-gray  eyes  there  was  neither  fire  nor  mind.  His 
round,  flat  face  aroused  no  sympathy,  and  did  not  even  bring 
a  smile  to  the  lips  of  those  who  study  the  varieties  of  Parisian 
physiognomy ;  it  was  depressing.  And  while,  like  his  father, 
he  was  short  and  thick,  his  shape,  not  having  the  coarse 
obesity  of  the  innkeeper,  showed  in  every  detail  an  absurd 
flabbiness.     His  father's  excessive  redness  gave  place  in  him 


PIERRETTE.  17 

to  the  flaccid  Hvidness  acquired  by  people  who  live  in  airless 
backstores,  in  the  barred  coops  that  serve  as  counting-houses, 
always  folding  and  unfolding  skeins  of  thread,  paying  or  re- 
ceiving money,  harrying  clerks,  or  repeating  the  same  phrases 
to  customers.  The  small  intelligence  of  this  brother  and 
sister  had  been  completely  sunk  in  mastering  their  business, 
in  debit  and  credit,  and  in  the  study  of  the  rules  and  customs 
of  the  Paris  market.  Thread,  needles,  ribbon,  pins,  buttons, 
tailors'  trimmings,  in  short,  the  vast  list  of  articles  constitu- 
ting Paris  haberdashery,  had  filled  up  their  memory.  Letters 
to  write  and  answer,  bills  and  stock-taking,  had  absorbed  all 
their  capabilities. 

Outside  their  line  of  business  they  knew  absolutely  noth- 
ing ;  they  did  not  even  know  Paris.  To  them  Paris  was 
something  spread  out  round  the  Rue  Saint-Denis.  Their 
narrow  nature  found  its  field  in  their  store.  They  knew  very 
well  how  to  nag  their  assistants  and  shop-girls  and  find  them 
at  fault.  Their  joy  consisted  in  seeing  all  their  hands  as  busy 
on  the  counters  as  mice's  paws,  handling  the  goods  or  fold- 
ing up  the  pieces.  When  they  heard  seven  or  eight  young 
voices  of  lads  and  girls  simpering  out  the  time-honored 
phrases  with  which  shop-assistants  reply  to  a  customer's  re- 
marks, it  was  a  fine  day,  nice  weather.  When  ethereal  blue 
brought  life  to  Paris,  and  Parisians  out  walking  thought  of  no 
haberdashery  but  what  they  wore,  "  Bad  weather  for  busi- 
ness," the  silly  master  would  observe.  The  great  secret, 
which  made  Rogron  the  object  of  his  apprentices'  admira- 
tion was  his  art  in  tying,  untying,  re-tying,  and  making  up  a 
parcel.  Rogron  could  pack  a  parcel  and  look  out  at  what 
was  going  on  in  the  street,  or  keep  an  eye  on  his  store  to  its 
farther  depths  ;  he  had  seen  everything  by  the  time  he  handed 
it  to  the  buyer,  saying,  "  Madame — nothing  more  this  morn- 
ing?" 

But  for  his  sister,  this  simpleton  would  have  been  ruined. 
Sylvie  had  good  sense  and  the  spirit  of  trade.  She  advised 
2 


18  THE   CELIBATES. 

her  brother  as  to  his  purchases  from  the  manufacturers,  and 
relentlessly  sent  him  off  to  the  other  end  of  France  to  make  a 
sou  of  profit  on  some  article.  The  shrewdness,  of  which 
every  woman  possesses  more  or  less,  having  no  duty  to  do  for 
her  heart,  she  had  utilized  it  in  speculation.  Stock  to  be 
paid  for !  this  thought  was  the  piston  that  worked  this 
machine  and  gave  it  appalling  energy.  Rogron  was  never 
more  than  head-assistant ;  he  did  not  understand  his  business 
as  a  whole ;  personal  interest,  the  chief  motor  of  the  mind, 
had  not  carried  him  forward  one  step.  He  often  stood  dis- 
mayed when  his  sister  desired  him  to  sell  some  article  at  a 
loss,  foreseeing  that  it  would  go  out  of  the  fashion  ;  and 
afterwards  he  guilelessly  admired  her.  He  did  not  reason 
well  or  ill ;  he  was  incapable  of  reasoning  ;  but  he  had  sense 
enough  to  submit  to  his  sister,  and  he  did  so  for  a  reason  that 
had  nothing  to  do  with  business.  "  She  is  the  eldest,"  he 
would  say.  Physiologists  and  moralists  may  possibly  find  in 
such  a  persistently  solitary  life,  reduced  to  satisfy  mere  needs, 
and  deprived  of  money  and  pleasure  in  youth,  an  explana- 
tion of  the  animal  expression  of  face,  the  weak  brain,  and 
idiotic  manner  of  this  haberdasher.  His  sister  had  always 
hindered  his  marrying,  fearing  perhaps  that  she  might  lose 
her  influence  in  the  house,  and  seeing  a  source  of  expense 
and  ruin  in  a  wife  certainly  younger,  and  probably  less  hide- 
ous, than  herself. 

Stupidity  may  betray  itself  in  two  ways — it  is  talkative  or 
it  is  mute.  Mute  stupidity  may  be  endured ;  but  Rogron's 
was  talkative.  The  tradesman  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of 
scolding  his  assistants,  of  expatiating  to  them  on  the  minutise 
of  the  haberdashery  business  and  selling  to  "the  trade," 
ornamenting  his  lectures  with  the  flat  jokes  that  constitute 
the  bagout,  the  gab  of  the  store.  (This  word  bagout,  used 
formerly  to  designate  the  stereotyped  repartee,  has  given  way 
before  the  soldier's  slang  word  blagiie  or  humbug.)  Rogron, 
to  whom  his  little  domestic  audience  was  bound  to  listen; 


PIERRETTE.  19 

Rogron,  very  much  pleased  with  himself,  had  finally  adopted 
a  set  of  phrases  of  his  own.  The  chatterbox  believed  himself 
eloquent.  The  need  for  explaining  to  customers  the  thing 
they  want,  for  finding  out  their  wishes,  for  making  them  want 
the  thing  they  do  not  want,  loosens  the  tongue  of  the  counter- 
jumper.  The  retail  dealer  at  last  acquires  the  faculty  of 
pouring  out  sentences  in  which  words  have  no  meaning,  but 
which  answer  their  purpose.  Then  he  can  explain  to  his  cus- 
tomers methods  of  manufacture  unknown  to  them,  and  this 
gives  him  a  sort  of  short-lived  superiority  over  the  purchaser ; 
but  apart  from  the  thousand  and  one  explanations  necessitated 
by  the  thousand  and  one  articles  he  sells,  he  is,  so  far  as 
thought  is  concerned,  like  a  fish  on  straw  in  the  sunshine. 

Rogron  and  Sylvie — a  pair  of  machines  illicitly  baptized 
— had  neither  potentially  nor  actively  the  feelings  which  give 
life  to  the  heart.  These  two  beings  were  utterly  dry  and 
tough,  hardened  by  toil,  by  privations,  by  the  remembrance 
of  their  sufferings  during  a  long  and  wearisome  apprentice- 
ship. Neither  he  nor  she  had  pity  for  any  misfortune.  They 
were  not  implacable,  but  impenetrable  with  regard  to  anybody 
in  difficulties.  To  them  virtue,  honor,  loyalty,  every  human 
feeling  was  epitomized  in  the  regular  payment  of  their  ac- 
counts. Close-fisted,  heartless,  and  sordidly  thrifty,  the 
brother  and  sister  had  a  terrible  reputation  among  the  traders 
of  the  Rue  Saint-Denis. 

But  for  their  visits  to  Provins,  whither  they  went  thrice  a 
year,  at  times  when  they  could  shut  the  store  for  two  or  three 
days,  they  would  never  have  gotten  any  store  assistants.  But 
old  Rogron  packed  off  to  his  children  every  unhappy  creature 
intended  by  its  parents  to  go  into  trade ;  he  carried  on  for  them 
a  business  in  apprentices  in  Provins,  where  he  vaunted  with 
much  vanity  his  children's  fortune.  The  parents,  tempted 
by  the  remote  hope  of  having  their  son  or  daughter  well 
taught  and  well  looked  after,  and  the  chance  of  seeing  a 
child  some  day  step  into  Rogron  junior's  business,  sent  the 


20  THE  CELIBATES. 

youth  who  was  in  the  way  to  the  house  kept  by  the  old  bach- 
elor and  old  maid.  But  as  soon  as  the  apprentices,  man  or 
maid,  for  whom  the  fee  of  a  hundred  crowns  was  always  paid, 
saw  any  way  of  escaping  from  these  galleys,  they  fled  with  a 
glee  which  added  to  the  terrible  notoriety  of  the  Rogrons. 
The  indefatigable  innkeeper  always  supplied  them  with  fresh 
victims. 

From  the  age  of  fifteen  Sylvie  Rogron,  accustomed  to 
grimace  over  the  counter,  had  two  faces — the  amiable  mask 
of  the  saleswoman  and  the  natural  expression  of  a  shriveled 
old  maid.  Her  assumed  countenance  was  a  marvelous  piece 
of  mimicry ;  she  smiled  all  over ;  her  voice  turned  soft  and 
insinuating,  and  held  the  customers  under  a  commercial  spell. 
Her  real  face  was  what  she  had  shown  between  the  two  half- 
opened  shutters.  It  would  have  scared  the  bravest  of  the 
Cossacks  of  1815,  though  they  dearly  loved  every  variety  of 
Frenchwomen. 

When  the  letter  came  from  the  Lorrains,  the  Rogrons,  in 
mourning  for  their  father,  had  come  into  possession  of  the 
house  they  had  almost  stolen  from  Pierrette's  grandmother,  of 
the  innkeeper's  acquired  land,  and  finally  of  certain  sums 
derived  from  usurious  loans  in  mortgages  on  land  in  the 
hands  of  peasant-owners  whom  the  old  drunkard  hoped  to 
dispossess.  The  charge  on  the  business  was  paid  off.  The 
Rogrons  had  stock  to  the  value  of  about  sixty  thousand  francs 
in  the  shop,  about  forty  thousand  francs  in  their  cash-box  or 
in  assets,  and  the  value  of  their  good-will.  Seated  on  the 
bench,  covered  with  striped-green  worsted  velvet,  and  fitted 
into  a  square  recess  behind-  the  cash-desk,  with  just  such 
another  desk  opposite  for  the  forewoman,  the  brother  and 
sister  held  council  as  to  their  plans.  Every  tradesman  hopes 
to  retire.  If  they  realized  their  whole  stock  and  business, 
they  ought  to  have  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs, 
without  counting  their  inheritance  from  old  Rogron.     Thus 


PIERRETTE.  21 

by  investing  in  the  funds  the  capital  at  their  disposal,  each  of 
them  would  have  three  to  four  thousand  francs  a  year,  even  if 
they  devoted  the  price  of  the  business — which  would  no  doubt 
be  paid  in  installments — to  restoring  their  paternal  home.  So 
they  might  go  to  Provins  and  live  there  in  a  house  of  their 
own. 

Their  forewoman  was  the  daughter  of  a  rich  farmer  at  Don- 
nemarie,  who  was  burthened  with  nine  children ;  thus  he  was 
obliged  to  place  them  all  in  business,  for  his  wealth,  divided 
among  nine,  would  be  little  enough  for  each.  But  in  five 
years  the  farmer  lost  seven  of  his  children,  consequently  the 
forewoman  had  become  an  interesting  person ;  so  much  so, 
that  Rogron  had  attempted,  but  vainly,  to  make  her  his  wife. 
The  young  lady  manifested  an  aversion  for  the  master  which 
nullified  all  his  manoeuvres.  On  the  other  hand,  Mademoi- 
selle Sylvie  did  not  encourage  the  plan ;  she  even  opposed 
her  brother's  marriage,  and  wanted  rather  to  have  so  clever  a 
woman  as  their  successor,  Rogron's  marriage  she  postponed 
till  they  should  be  settled  at  Provins. 

No  passer-by  can  understand  the  motive-power  that  under- 
lies the  cryptogamic  lives  of  certain  storekeepers;  as  we  look 
at  them  we  wonder,  "  On  what,  and  why  do  they  live  ?  What 
becomes  of  them  ?  Where  did  they  come  from  ?  "  We  lose 
ourselves  in  vacancy  as  we  try  to  account  for  them.  To  dis- 
cover the  little  poetry  that  germinates  in  these  brains  and 
vivifies  these  existences,  we  must  dig  into  them ;  but  we  soon 
reach  the  tufa  on  which  everything  rests.  The  Paris  store- 
keeper feeds  on  hopes  more  or  less  likely  to  be  realized,  and 
without  which  he  would  evidently  perish  :  one  dreams  of  build- 
ing or  managing  a  theatre,  another  struggles  for  the  honors  of 
the  Mairie ;  this  one  has  a  castle  in  the  air  three  leagues  from 
Paris,  a  so-called  park,  where  he  plants  colored  plaster  statues 
and  arranges  fountains  that  look  like  an  end  of  thread,  and 
spends  immense  sums ;  that  one  longs  for  promotion  to  the 
higher  grades  of  the  National  Guard.     Provins,  an  earthly 


22  THE   CELIBATES. 

paradise,  excited  in  the  two  haberdashers  the  fanaticism  which 
the  inhabitants  of  every  pretty  town  in  France  feel  for  their 
home.  And  to  the  glory  of  Champagne,  it  may  be  said  that 
this  affection  is  amply  justified.  Provins,  one  of  the  most 
charming  spots  in  France,  rivals  Frangistan  and  the  valley 
of  Cashmere ;  not  only  has  it  all  the  poetry  of  Saadi,  the 
Homer  of  Persia,  but  it  also  has  pharmaceutical  treasures  for 
medical  science.  The  crusaders  brought  roses  from  Jericho 
to  this  delightful  valley,  where,  by  some  chance,  the  flowers 
developed  new  qualities  without  losing  anything  of  their  color. 
And  Provins  is  not  only  the  Persia  of  France ;  it  might  be 
Baden,  Aix,  Bath ;  it  has  mineral  waters. 

This  is  the  picture  seen  year  after  year,  which  now  and 
again  appeared  in  a  vision  to  the  haberdashers  on  the  muddy 
pavement  of  the  Rue  Saint-Denis. 

After  crossing  the  gray  flats  that  lie  between  La  Ferte- 
Gaucher  and  Provins — a  desert,  but  a  fertile  one,  a  desert 
of  wheat — you  mount  a  hill.  Suddenly,  at  your  feet,  you 
see  a  town  watered  by  two  rivers ;  at  the  bottom  of  the  slope 
spreads  a  green  valley  broken  by  graceful  lines  and  retreating 
distances.  If  you  come  from  Paris  you  take  Provins  length- 
ways; you  see  the  everlasting  French  high-road  running  along 
the  foot  of  the  hill  and  close  under  it,  owning  its  blindman 
and  its  beggars,  who  throw  in  an  accompaniment  of  lamentable 
voices  when  you  pause  to  gaze  at  this  unexpectedly  picturesque 
tract  of  land.  If  you  arrive  from  Troyes  you  come  in  from 
the  plain.  The  castle  and  the  old  town,  with  its  rampart, 
climb  the  shelves  of  the  hill.     The  new  town  lies  below. 

There  are  upper  and  lower  Provins  ;  above,  a  town  in  the 
air,  with  steep  streets  and  fine  points  of  view,  surrounded 
by  hollow  roads  like  ravines  between  rows  of  walnut  trees, 
furrowing  the  narrow  hilltop  with  deep  cuttings :  a  silent 
town  this,  clean  and  solemn,  overshadowed  by  the  imposing 
ruins  of  the  stronghold  ;  then,  below,  a  town  of  mills,  watered 
by  the  Voulzie  and  the  Durtain,  two  rivers  of  Brie,  narrow, 


PIERRETTE.  23 

sluggish,  and  deep ;  a  town  of  inns  and  trade,  of  retired 
tradespeople,  traversed  by  diligences,  chaises,  and  heavy  carts. 
These  two  towns — or  this  town — with  its  historical  associa- 
tions, with  the  melancholy  of  its  ruins,  the  gaiety  of  its  valley, 
its  delightful  ravines  full  of  unkempt  hedgerows  and  wild- 
flowers,  its  river  terraced  with  gardens,  has  so  sure  a  hold  on 
the  love  of  its  children  that  they  behave  like  the  sons  of 
Auvergne,  of  Savoy,  of  France.  Though  they  leave  Provins 
to  seek  their  fortune,  they  always  come  back  to  it.  The 
phrase,  "To  die  in  one's  burrow,"  made  for  rabbits  and 
faithful  souls,  might  be  taken  by  the  natives  of  Provins  as 
their  motto. 

And  so  the  two  Rogrons  thought  only  of  their  beloved 
Provins.  As  he  sold  thread,  the  brother  saw  the  old  town. 
While  packing  cards  covered  with  buttons,  he  was  gazing  at 
the  valley.  He  rolled  and  unrolled  tape,  but  he  was  follow- 
ing the  gleaming  course  of  the  rivers.  As  he  looked  at  his 
pigeon-holes  he  was  climbing  the  sunk  roads  whither  of  old 
he  fled  to  evade  his  father's  rage,  to  eat  walnuts,  and  to  cram 
on  blackberries.  The  little  square  at  Provins  above  all  filled 
his  thoughts ;  he  would  beautify  the  house ;  he  dreamed  of 
the  front  he  would  rebuild,  the  bedrooms,  the  sitting-room, 
the  billiard-room,  the  dining-room  ;  then  of  the  kitchen  gar- 
den, which  he  would  turn  into  an  English  garden  with  a  lawn, 
grottoes,  fountains,  statues,  and  what  not  ? 

The  rooms  in  which  the  brother  and  sister  slept  on  the 
third  floor  of  the  house,  three  windows  wide  and  six  stories 
high — there  are  many  such  in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis — had  no 
furniture  beyond  what  was  strictly  necessary ;  but  not  a  soul 
in  Paris  had  finer  furniture  than  this  haberdasher.  As  he 
walked  in  the  streets  he  would  stand  in  the  attitude  of  an 
ecstatic,  looking  at  the  handsome  pieces  on  show,  and  examin- 
ing hangings  with  which  he  filled  his  house.  On  coming 
home  he  would  say  to  his  sister,  "  I  saw  a  thing  in  such  or 
such  a  store     that  would  just  do   for  us!"     The  next  day 


24  THE    CELIBATES. 

he  would  buy  another,  and  invariably  he  gave  up  one  month 
the  choice  of  the  month  before.  The  revenue  would  not  have 
paid  for  his  architectural  projects  \  he  wanted  everything,  and 
always  gave  the  preference  to  the  newest  thing.  When  he 
studied  the  balconies  of  a  newly  built  house,  and  the  doubtful 
attempts  at  exterior  decoration,  he  thought  the  mouldings, 
sculpture,  and  ornament  quite  out  of  place.  "Ah!"  he 
would  say  to  himself,  "  those  fine  things  would  look  much 
better  at  Provins  than  they  do  there."  As  he  digested  his 
breakfast  on  his  doorstep,  leaning  his  back  against  the  store 
side,  with  a  hazy  eye  the  haberdasher  saw  a  fantastic  dwelling, 
golden  in  the  sunshine  of  his  dream ;  he  walked  in  a  garden, 
listening  to  his  fountain  as  it  splashed  in  a  shower  of  diamonds 
on  a  round  flag  of  limestone.  He  played  billiards  on  his  own 
table;  he  planted  flowers. 

When  his  sister  sat,  pen  in  hand,  lost  in  thought,  and  for- 
getting to  scold  the  shopmen,  she  was  seeing  herself  receiving 
the  townsfolk  of  Provins,  gazing  at  herself  in  the  tall  mirrors 
of  her  drawing-room,  and  wearing  astounding  caps.  Both 
brother  and  sister  were  beginning  to  think  that  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Rue  Saint-Denis  was  unwholesome,  and  the  smell  of 
the  mud  in  the  market  made  them  long  for  the  scent  of  the 
roses  of  Provins.  They  suff"ered  alike  from  home-sickness  and 
monomania,  both  thwarted  by  the  necessity  for  selling  their 
last  remnants  of  thread,  reels  of  silk,  and  buttons.  The  prom- 
ised land  of  the  valley  of  Provins  attracted  these  Israelites  all 
the  more  strongly  because  they  had  for  a  long  time  really 
suffered,  and  had  crossed  with  gasping  breath  the  sandy 
deserts  of  haberdashery. 

The  letter  from  the  Lorrains  arrived  in  the  middle  of  a 
meditation  on  that  beautiful  future.  The  haberdashers  scarcely 
knew  their  cousin  Pierrette  Lorrain.  The  settlement  of 
Auff'ray's  estate,  long  since,  by  the  old  innkeeper,  had  taken 
place  when  they  were  going  into  business,  and  Rogron  never 
said  ipuch  about  his  money  matters.     Having  been  sent  to 


PIERRETTE.  25 

Paris  so  young,  the  brother  and  sister  could  hardly  remember 
their  aunt  Lorrain.  It  took  them  an  hour  of  genealogical 
discussion  to  recall  their  aunt,  the  daughter  of  their  grand- 
father Auffray's  second  wife,  and  their  mother's  half-sister. 
They  then  remembered  that  Madame  Lorrain's  mother  was 
the  Madame  Neraud  who  had  died  of  grief.  They  concluded 
tliat  their  grandfather's  second  marriage  had  been  a  disastrous 
thing  for  them,  the  result  being  the  division  of  Auffray's 
estate  between  two  families.  They  had,  indeed,  heard  sundry 
recriminations  from  their  father,  who  was  always  somewhat 
of  the  grudging  publican.  The  pair  studied  the  Lorrains' 
letter  through  the  medium  of  these  reminiscences,  which 
were  not  in  Pierrette's  favor.  To  take  charge  of  an  orphan, 
a  girl,  a  cousin,  who  in  any  case  would  be  their  heiress  in  the 
event  of  neither  of  them  marrying — this  was  matter  for 
discussion.  The  question  was  regarded  from  every  point  of 
view.  In  the  first  place,  they  had  never  seen  Pierrette. 
Then  it  would  be  very  troublesome  to  have  a  young  girl  to 
look  after.  Would  they  not  be  binding  themselves  to  provide 
for  her  ?  It  would  be  impossible  to  send  her  away  if  they 
did  not  like  her.  Would  they  not  have  to  find  her  a  husband  ? 
And  if,  after  all,  Rogron  could  find  "a  shoe  to  fit  him" 
among  the  heiresses  of  Provins,  would  it  not  be  better  to  keep 
all  they  had  for  his  children  ?  The  shoe  that  would  fit  her 
brother,  according  to  Sylvie,  was  a  rich  girl,  stupid  and  ugly, 
who  would  allow  her  sister-in-law  to  rule  her.  The  couple 
decided  that  they  would  refuse, 

Sylvie  undertook  to  reply.  Business  was  sufficiently  press- 
ing to  retard  this  letter,  which  she  did  not  deem  urgent,  and 
indeed  the  old  maid  thought  no  more  about  it  when  the  fore- 
woman consented  to  buy  the  business  and  stock-in-trade  of 
the  Sosur  de  famille. 

Sylvie  Rogron  and  her  brother  had  gone  to  settle  in  Provins 
four  years  before  the  time  when  Brigaut's  appearance  brought 
so  much  interest  into  Pierrette'?  life.     But  the  doings  of  these 


28  THE   CELIBATES. 

two  persons  in  the  country  require  a  description  no  less  than 
their  life  in  Paris ;  for  Provins  was  fated  to  be  as  evil  an  influ- 
ence for  Pierrette  as  her  cousins'  commercial  antecedents. 

When  a  small  tradesman  who  has  come  to  Paris  from  the 
provinces  returns  to  the  country  from  Paris,  he  inevitably 
brings  with  him  some  notions ;  presently  he  loses  them  in  the 
habits  of  the  place  where  he  settles  down,  and  where  his 
fancies  for  innovation  gradually  sink.  Hence  come  those 
slow,  small,  successive  changes  which  are  gradually  scratched 
by  Paris  on  the  surface  of  country-town  life,  and  which  are 
the  essential  stamp  of  the  change  of  a  retired  storekeeper  into 
a  confirmed  provincial.  This  change  is  a  real  distemper. 
No  small  tradesman  can  pass  without  a  shock  from  perpetual 
talk  to  utter  silence,  from  the  activity  of  his  Paris  life  to  the 
stagnation  of  the  country.  When  the  good  folks  have  earned 
a  little  money,  they  spend  a  certain  amount  on  the  passion 
they  have  so  long  been  hatching,  and  work  off  the  last  spasms 
of  an  energy  which  cannot  be  stopped  short  at  will.  Those 
who  have  never  cherished  any  definite  plan,  travel  or  throw 
themselves  into  the  political  interests  of  the  municipality. 
Some  go  out  shooting  or  fishing,  and  worry  their  farmers  and 
tenants.  Some  turn  usurers,  like  old  father  Rogron,  or  spec- 
ulate, like  many  obscure  persons. 

The  dream  of  this  brother  and  sister  is  known  to  you ;  they 
wanted  to  indulge  their  magnificent  fancy  for  handling  the 
trowel,  for  building  a  delightful  house.  This  fixed  idea  had 
graced  the  square  of  lower  Provins  with  the  frontage  which 
Brigaut  had  just  been  examining,  the  interior  arrangements 
of  the  house,  and  its  luxurious  furniture.  The  builder  drove 
never  a  nail  in  without  consulting  the  Rogrons,  without 
making  them  sign  the  plans  and  estimates,  without  explaining 
in  lengthy  detail  the  structure  of  the  object  under  discussion, 
where  it  was  made,  and  the  various  prices.  As  to  anything 
unusual,  it  had  always  been  introduced  by  Monsieur  Tiphaine 
or  Madame  Julliard  the  younger,  or  Monsieur  Garceland,  the 


PIERRETTE.  27 

mayor.     Such  a  resemblance  with  some  wealthy  citizen  of 
Provins  always  carried  the  day  in  the  builder's  favor. 

"  Oh,  if  Monsieur  Garceland  has  one  we  will  have  one, 
too!"  said  Mademoiselle  Sylvie.  "It  must  be  right;  he 
had  good  taste." 

• '  Sylvie,  he  also  suggests  we  should  have  ovolos  in  the 
cornice  of  the  passage." 

"  You  call  that  an  ovolo  ?  " 

"Yes,  mademoiselle." 

"But  why?  What  a  queer  name!  I  never  heard  it  be- 
fore." 

"  But  you  have  seen  them  ?  '* 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  know  Latin  ?  " 

"No." 

"Well,  it  means  egg-shaped;  the  ovolo  is  egg-shaped," 
explained  the  builder. 

"You  are  a  queer  crew,  you  architects!"  cried  Rogron. 
"That,  no  doubt,  is  the  reason  you  charge  so  much;  you 
don't  throw  away  your  egg-shells  I  " 

"  Shall  we  paint  the  passage  ?  "  asked  the  builder. 

"  Certainly  not  1  "  cried  Sylvie.  "  Another  five  hundred 
francs!  " 

"  But  the  drawing-room  and  the  stairs  are  so  nice,  it  is  a 
pity  not  to  decorate  the  passage,"  said  the  builder.  "  Little 
Madame  Lesourd  had  hers  painted  last  year." 

"And  yet  her  husband,  being  crown  prosecutor,  cannot 
stay  at  Provins '  * 

"  Oh  !  he  will  be  president  of  the  courts  here  some  day," 
said  the  builder. 

"  And  what  do  you  think  is  to  become  of  Monsieur  Tiph- 
aine  then  ?" 

"Monsieur  Tiphaine  !  He  has  a  pretty  wife ;  I  am  not 
uneasy  about  him.     Monsieur  Tiphaine  will  go  to  Paris." 

"  Shall  we  paint  the  corridor  ?  " 


28  THE  CELIBATES. 

'  *  Yes ;  the  Lesourds  will,  at  any  rate,  see  that  we  are  as 
good  as  they  are,"  said  Rogron. 

The  first  year  of  their  residence  in  Provins  was  wholly 
given  up  to  these  discussions,  to  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the 
workmen  busy,  to  the  surprises  and  information  of  all  kinds 
that  they  got  by  it,  and  to  the  attempts  made  by  the  brother 
and  sister  to  scrape  acquaintance  with  the  most  important 
families  in  the  town. 

The  Rogrons  had  never  had  any  kind  of  society ;  they 
had  never  gone  out  of  their  store;  they  knew  literally  no  one 
in  Paris,  and  they  thirsted  for  the  pleasures  of  visiting.  On 
their  return  they  found  first  Monsieur  and  Madame  Julliard, 
of  the  Fer  chinois,  with  their  children  and  grandchildren ; 
then  the  Guepin  family,  or,  to  be  exact,  the  Guepin  clan ; 
the  grandson  still  kept  the  shop  of  the  Trois  Quenouilles ; 
and,  finally,  Madame  Guenee,  who  had  sold  them  the  business 
of  the  ScBur  defamille ;  her  three  daughters  were  married  in 
Provins.  These  three  great  tribes — the  JuUiards,  the  Guepins, 
and  the  Guenees — spread  over  the  town  like  couch-grass  on  a 
lawn.  Monsieur  Garceland,  the  mayor,  was  Monsieur  Gue- 
pin's  son-in-law.  The  cure,  Monsieur  I'Abbe  Peroux,  was 
own  brother  to  Madame  Julliard,  who  was  a  Peroux.  The 
president  of  the  court,  Monsieur  Tiphaine,  was  brother  to 
Madame  Gu6n6e,  who  signed  herself  "«<»<?  Tiphaine." 

The  queen  of  the  town  was  Madame  Tiphaine, ya^/i^r,  the 
handsome  only  daughter  of  Madame  Roguin,  who  was  the 
wealthy  wife  of  a  notary  of  Paris ;  but  he  was  never  mentioned. 
Delicate,  pretty,  and  clever,  married  to  a  provincial  husband 
by  the  express  management  of  her  mother,  who  would  not 
have  her  with  her,  and  had  taken  her  from  school  only  a  few 
days  before  her  marriage,  Melanie  felt  herself  an  exile  at 
Provins,  where  she  behaved  admirably  well.  She  was  already 
rich,  and  had  great  expectations.  As  to  Monsieur  Tiphaine, 
his  old  father  had  advanced  his  eldest  daughter,  Madame 
Guenee,   so  much   money  on  account  of  her   share  of  the 


PIERRETTE.  29 

property,  that  an  estate  worth  eight  thousand  francs  a  year,  at 
about  five  leagues  from  Provins,  would  fall  to  the  president. 
Thus  the  Tiphaines,  who  had  married  on  twenty  thousand 
francs  a  year,  exclusive  of  the  president's  salary  and  residence, 
expected  some  day  to  have  twenty  thousand  francs  a  year 
more.     They  were  not  out  of  luck,  people  said. 

Madame  Tiphaine's  great  and  only  object  in  life  was  to 
secure  her  husband's  election  as  deputy.  Once  in  Paris,  the 
deputy  would  be  made  judge,  and  from  the  lower  court  she 
promised  herself  he  should  soon  be  promoted  to  the  high 
court  of  justice.  Hence  she  humored  everybody's  vanity,  and 
strove  to  please;  more  difficult  still,  she  succeeded.  The 
young  woman  of  two-and-twenty  received  twice  a  week,  in 
her  handsome  house  in  the  old  town,  all  the  citizen  class  of 
Provins.  She  had  not  yet  taken  a  single  awkward  step  on 
the  slippery  ground  where  she  stood.  She  gratified  every 
conceit,  patted  every  hobby ;  grave  with  serious  folks  and  a 
girl  with  girls,  of  all  things  a  mother  with  the  mothers,  cheer- 
ful with  the  young  wives,  eager  to  oblige,  polite  to  all;  in 
short,  a  pearl,  a  gem,  the  pride  of  Provins.  She  had  not  yet 
said  the  word,  but  all  the  electors  of  the  town  awaited  the 
day  when  their  dear  president  should  be  old  enough  to  nomi- 
nate him  at  once.  Every  voter,  sure  of  his  talents,  made  him 
his  man  and  his  patron.  Oh,  yes.  Monsieur  Tiphaine  would 
get  on ;  he  would  be  keeper  of  the  seals,  and  he  would  pro- 
mote the  interests  of  Provins. 

These  were  the  means  by  which  Madame  Tiphaine  had 
been  so  fortunate  as  to  obtain  her  ascendency  over  the  little 
town  of  Provins.  Madame  Guenee,  Monsieur  Tiphaine's  sis- 
ter, after  seeing  her  three  daughters  married — the  eldest  to 
Monsieur  Lesourd  the  public  prosecutor,  the  second  to  Mon- 
sieur Martener  the  doctor,  and  the  third  to  Monsieur  Auffray 
the  notary — had  herself  married  again  Monsieur  Galardon, 
the  collector  of  taxes.  Mesdames  Lesourd,  Martener,  and 
Auffray,  and  their  mother  Madame  Galardon,  regarded  the 


30  THE  CELIBATES. 

president  as  the  wealthiest  and  cleverest  man  in  the  family. 
The  public  prosecutor,  Monsieur  Tiphaine's  nephew  by  mar- 
riage, had  the  greatest  interest  in  getting  his  uncle  to  Paris, 
so  as  to  be  made  president  himself.  Hence  these  four  ladies 
— for  Madame  Galardon  adored  her  brother — formed  a  little 
court  about  Madame  Tiphaine,  taking  her  opinion  and  advice 
on  every  subject. 

Then  Monsieur  Julliard's  eldest  son,  married  to  the  only 
daughter  of  a  rich  farmer,  was  taken  with  a  sudden  passion,  a 
grande  passion,  secret  and  disinterested,  for  the  president's 
wife — that  angel  dropped  from  the  sky  of  Paris.  Melanie, 
very  wily,  incapable  of  burdening  herself  with  a  JuUiard,  but 
perfectly  capable  of  keeping  him  as  an  Amadis  and  making 
use  of  his  folly,  advised  him  to  start  a  newspaper  to  wliich 
she  was  the  Egeria.  So  for  two  years  now  Julliard,  animated 
by  his  romantic  passion,  had  managed  a  paper  and  run  a 
diligence  for  Provins.  The  newspaper,  entitled  La  Ruche 
(The  Beehive),  included  literary,  archaeological,  and  medical 
papers  concocted  in  the  family.  The  advertisements  of  the 
district  paid  the  expenses ;  the  subscriptions — about  two  hun- 
dred— were  all  profit.  Melancholy  verses  sometimes  appeared 
in  it,  unintelligible  to  the  country  people,  and  addressed  "To 
Her!!!"  with  the  three  points  of  exclamation.  Thus  the 
young  Julliard  couple,  singing  the  merits  of  Madame  Tiphaine, 
had  allied  the  clan  Julliard  to  that  of  the  Guenees.  Thence- 
forward the  president's  drawing-room,  of  course,  led  the  society 
of  the  town.  The  very  few  aristocrats  who  lived  at  Provins 
met  in  a  single  house  in  the  old  town,  that  of  the  old  Com- 
tesse  de  Breautey. 

During  the  first  six  months  after  their  transplanting,  the 
Rogrons,  by  favor  of  their  old-time  connection  with  the 
Julliards,  the  Guepins,  and  the  Guenees,  and  by  emphasizing 
their  relationship  to  Monsieur  Auffray  the  notary — a  great 
grand-nephew  of  their  grandfather — were  received  at  first  by 


PIERRETTE.  31 

Madame  Julliard  the  elder  and  Madame  Galardon  ;  then,  not 
without  difficulty,  they  found  admission  to  the  beautiful 
Madame  Tiphaine's  drawing-room.  Everybody  wished  to 
know  something  about  the  Rogrons  before  inviting  them 
to  call.  It  was  a  little  difficult  to  avoid  receiving  trades- 
people of  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  natives  of  Provins,  who  had 
come  back  to  spend  their  money  there.  Nevertheless,  the 
instinct  of  society  is  always  to  bring  together  persons  of 
similar  fortune,  education,  manners,  acquaintance,  and  char- 
acter. 

Now  the  Guepins,  the  Guenees,  and  the  Julliards  were 
of  a  higher  grade  and  of  older  family  than  the  Rogrons 
— the  children  of  a  money-lending  innkeeper  who  could  not 
be  held  blameless  in  his  private  life,  nor  with  regard  to  the 
AufTray  inheritance.  AufiFray  the  notary,  Madame  Galardon's 
son-in-law,  knew  all  about  it ;  the  estate  had  been  wound  up 
in  his  predecessor's  office.  Those  older  merchants,  who  had 
retired  twelve  years  since,  had  found  themselves  on  the  level 
of  education,  breeding,  and  manners  of  the  circle  to  which 
Madame  Tiphaine  imparted  a  certain  stamp  of  elegance,  of 
Paris  varnish.  Everything  was  homogeneous  ;  they  all  under- 
stood each  other,  and  knew  how  to  conduct  themselves,  and 
talk  so  as  to  be  agreeable  to  the  rest.  They  knew  each  other's 
characters,  and  were  accustomed  to  agree.  Having  been  once 
received  by  Monsieur  Garceland  the  mayor,  the  Rogrons  flat- 
tered themselves  that  they  should  soon  be  on  intimate  terms 
with  the  best  society  of  the  town.  Sylvie  learned  to  play 
boston.  Rogron,  far  too  stupid  to  play  any  game,  twirled  his 
thumbs  and  swallowed  his  words  when  once  he  had  talked 
about  his  house.  But  the  words  acted  like  medicine ;  they 
seemed  to  torture  him  cruelly ;  he  rose,  he  looked  as  if  he 
were  about  to  speak ;  he  took  fright  and  sat  down  again,  his 
lips  comically  convulsed.  Sylvie  unconsciously  displayed 
her  nature  at  games.  Fractious  and  complaining  whenever 
she  lost,   insolently  triumphant  when  she  won,  contentious 


32  THE  CELIBATES. 

and  fretful,  she  irritated  her  adversaries  and  her  partners,  and 
was  a  nuisance  to  everybody. 

Eaten  up  with  silly  and  undisguised  envy,  Rogron  and  his 
sister  tried  to  play  a  part  in  a  town  where  a  dozen  families 
had  formed  a  net  of  close  meshes ;  all  their  interests,  all  their 
vanities  made,  as  it  were,  a  slippery  floor  on  which  newcomers 
had  to  tread  very  cautiously  to  avoid  running  up  against  some- 
thing or  getting  a  fall.  Allowing  that  the  rebuilding  of  their 
house  might  cost  thirty  thousand  francs,  the  brother  and  sister 
between  them  would  still  have  ten  thousand  francs  a  year. 
They  fancied  themselves  very  rich,  bored  their  acquaintance 
to  death  with  their  talk  of  future  splendor,  and  so  gave  the 
measure  of  their  meanness,  their  crass  ignorance,  and  their 
idiotic  jealousy.  The  evening  they  were  introduced  to 
Madame  Tiphaine  the  beauty  —  who  had  already  watched 
them  at  Madame  Garceland's,  at  her  sister-in-law's,  Madame 
Galardon's,  and  at  the  elder  Madame  Julliard's — the  queen 
of  Provins  said  in  a  confidential  tone  to  Julliard,  junior,  who 
remained  alone  with  her  and  the  president  a  few  minutes 
after  every  one  was  gone — 

"You  all  seem  to  be  much  smitten  with  these  Rogrons?  " 

* '  I !  "  said  the  Amadis  of  Provins ;  * '  they  bore  my  mother ; 
they  overpower  my  wife ;  and  when  Mademoiselle  Sylvie  was 
sent,  thirty  years  ago,  as  an  apprentice  to  my  father,  even 
then  he  could  not  endure  her." 

"  But  I  have  a  very  great  mind,"  said  the  pretty  lady,  pul- 
ing a  little  foot  on  the  bar  of  the  fender,  "to  give  them  to 
understand  that  my  drawing-room  is  not  an  inn-parlor." 

Julliard  cast  up  his  eyes  to  the  ceiling  as  much  as  to  say — 

"  Dear  heaven,  what  wit,  what  subtlety  !  " 

"  I  wish  my  company  to  be  select,  and  if  I  admit  the  Ro- 
grons it  will  certainly  not  be  that." 

"They  have  no  heart,  no  brain,  no  manners,"  said  the 
president.  "  When  after  having  sold  thread  for  twenty  years, 
as  my  sister  did,  for  instance " 


PIERRETTE.  33 

'-^  My  dear,  your  sister  would  not  be  out  of  place  in  any 
drawing-room,"  said  Madame  Tiphaine,  in  a  parenthesis. 

"If  people  are  so  stupid  as  to  remain  haberdashers  to  the 
end,"  the  president  went  on  ;  "  if  they  do  not  cast  their 
skin ;  if  they  think  that  '  Comtes  de  Champagne '  means  '  ac- 
counts for  wine,'  as  the  Rogrons  did  this  evening,  they  should 
stay  at  home." 

"They  are  noisome  !"  said  Julliard.  "You  might  think 
there  was  only  one  house  in  Provins.  They  want  to  crush  us, 
and,  after  all,  they  have  hardly  enough  to  live  on." 

"  If  it  were  only  the  brother,"  said  Madame  Tiphaine,  "we 
might  put  up  with  him.  He  is  not  offensive.  Give  him  a 
Chinese  puzzle,  and  he  would  sit  quietly  in  a  corner.  It 
would  take  him  the  whole  winter  to  put  up  one  pattern.  But 
Mademoiselle  Sylvie  !  What  a  voice — like  a  hyena  with  a 
cold  !  What  lobster's  claws !  Do  not  repeat  anything  of 
this  Julliard." 

When  Julliard  was  gone,  the  little  lady  said  to  her  hus- 
band— 

"  My  dear,  there  are  enough  of  the  natives  that  I  am  obliged 
to  receive;  these  two  more  will  be  the  death  of  me  ;  and  with 
your  permission,  we  will  deprive  ourselves  of  the  pleasure," 

"You  are  the  mistress  in  your  own  house,"  said  the  presi- 
dent, "  but  we  shall  make  many  enemies.  The  Rogrons  will 
join  the  Opposition,  which  hitherto  has  had  no  solidity  in 
Provins.  That  Rogron  is  already  hanging  on  to  Baron  Gou- 
raud  and  Vinet  the  lawyer." 

"  Heh  !  "  said  Melanie,  with  a  smile,  "they  will  do  you 
service  then.  Where  there  are  no  enemies,  there  is  no  tri- 
umph. A  Liberal  conspiracy,  an  illegal  society,  a  fight  of 
some  kind,  would  bring  you  into  the  foreground." 

The  president  looked  at  his  young  wife  with  a  sort  of 
alarmed  admiration. 

Next  day  every  one  at  Madame  Garceland's  said  in  every 
one  else's  ear  that  the  Rogrons  had  not  had  a  success  at 
3 


34  THE  CELIBATES. 

Madame  Tiphaine's,  and  her  remark  about  the  inn-parlor  was 
much  applauded.  Madame  Tiphaine  took  a  month  before  re- 
turning Mademoiselle  Sylvie's  visit.  This  rudeness  is  much 
remarked  on  in  the  country.  Then,  at  Madame  Tiphaine's 
when  playing  boston  with  the  elder  Madame  Julliard,  Sylvie 
made  a  most  unpleasant  scene  about  a  splendid  misere  hand, 
on  which  her  erewhile  mistress  caused  her  to  lose — maliciously 
and  on  purpose,  she  declared.  Sylvie,  who  loved  to  play 
nasty  tricks  on  others,  could  never  accept  a  return  in  kind. 
Madame  Tiphaine,  therefore,  set  the  example  of  making  up 
the  card-parties  before  the  Rogrons  arrived,  so  that  Sylvie  was 
reduced  to  wandering  from  table  to  table,  watching  others 
play,  while  they  looked  askance  at  her  with  meaning  glances. 
At  old  Madame  Julliard's  whist  was  now  the  game,  and  Sylvie 
could  not  play  it.  The  old  maid  at  last  understood  that  she 
was  an  outlaw,  but  without  understanding  the  reason.  She 
believed  herself  to  be  an  object  of  jealousy  to  everybody. 

Ere  long  the  Rogrons  were  asked  nowhere ;  but  they  per- 
sistently spent  their  evenings  at  various  houses.  Clever  people 
made  game  of  them,  without  venom,  quite  mildly,  leading 
them  to  talk  utter  nonsense  about  the  ovolos  in  their  house, 
and  about  a  certain  cellaret  for  liqueurs,  matchless  in  Provins. 
Meanwhile  they  gave  themselves  the  final  blow.  Of  course, 
they  gave  a  few  sumptuous  dinners,  as  much  in  return  for  the 
civilities  they  had  received  as  to  show  off  their  splendor. 
The  guests  came  solely  out  of  curiosity.  The  first  dinner  was 
given  to  Monsieur  and  Madame  Tiphaine,  with  whom  the 
Rogrons  had  not  once  dined ;  to  Messieurs  and  Mesdames 
Julliard,  father  and  son,  mother  and  daughter-in-law;  to 
Monsieur  Lesourd,  Monsieur  the  cure.  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Galardon.  It  was  one  of  those  provincial  spreads,  where  the 
guests  sit  at  table  from  five  o'clock  till  nine.  Madame 
Tiphaine  had  introduced  the  grand  Paris  style  to  Provins,  the 
well-bred  guests  going  away  as  soon  as  coffee  had  been  served. 
She  had  some  friends  that  evening  at  home,  and  tried  to  steal 


PIERRETTE.  35 

away,  but  the  Rogrons  escorted  the  couple  to  the  very  street ; 
and  when  they  returned,  bewildered  at  having  failed  to  keep 
the  president  and  his  wife,  the  other  guests  explained  Madame 
Tiphaine's  good  taste,  and  imitated  it  with  a  promptitude  that 
was  cruel  in  a  country-town. 

"They  will  not  see  our  drawing-room  lighted  up!  "  cried 
Sylvie,  "and  candle-light  is  like  rouge  to  it." 

The  Rogrons  had  hoped  to  give  their  guests  a  surprise.  No 
one  hitherto  had  been  admitted  to  see  this  much-talked-of 
house.  And  all  the  frequenters  of  Madame  Tiphaine's  draw- 
ing-room impatiently  awaited  her  verdict  as  to  the  marvels  of 
the  ''Palais  Rogron." 

**  Well,"  said  little  Madame  Martener,  "  you  have  seen  the 
Louvre  ?     Tell  us  all  about  it." 

"But  all — like  the  dinner — will  not  amount  to  much." 

"What  is  it  like?" 

"Well,  the  front  door,  of  which  we  were,  of  course,  re- 
quired to  admire  the  gilt-iron  window-frames  that  you  all 
know,  opens  into  a  long  passage  through  the  house,  dividing 
it  unequally,  since  there  is  but  one  window  to  the  street  on 
the  right,  and  two  on  the  left.  At  the  garden  end  this  pas- 
sage has  a  glass  door  to  steps  leading  down  to  the  lawn,  a 
lawn  with  a  decorative  pedestal  supporting  a  plaster  cast  of 
the  Spartacus,  painted  to  imitate  bronze.  Behind  the  kitchen 
the  architect  has  contrived  a  little  pantry  under  the  staircase, 
which  we  were  not  spared  seeing.  The  stair,  painted  through- 
out like  yellow-veined  marble,  is  a  hollow  spiral,  just  like  the 
stairs  that  in  a  cafe  lead  from  the  ground  floor  to  the  entresol. 
This  trumpery  structure  of  walnut-wood,  really  dangerously 
light,  and  with  banisters  picked  out  with  brass,  was  displayed 
to  us  as  one  of  the  seven  new  wonders  of  the  world.  The  way 
to  the  cellars  is  beneath. 

"  On  the  other  side  of  the  passage,  looking  on  the  street, 
is  the  dining-room,  opening  by  folding  doors  into  the  draw- 
ing-room, of  the  same  size,  but  looking  on  to  the  garden." 


36  THE   CELIBATES. 

"  So  there  is  no  hall?  "  said  Madame  AufFray. 

"The  hall,  no  doubt,  is  the  long  passage  where  you  stand 
in  a  draught,"  replied  Madame  Tiphaine.  "  We  have  had  the 
eminently  national,  liberal,  constitutional,  and  patriotic  no- 
tion," she  went  on,  "  of  making  use  only  of  wood  grown  in 
France  !  In  the  dining-room,  the  floor,  laid  in  a  neat  pattern, 
is  of  walnut-wood.  The  sideboards,  table,  and  chairs  are  also 
in  walnut.  The  window-curtains  are  of  white  cotton  with  red 
borders,  looped  back  with  vulgar  ropes  over  enormous  pegs 
with  elaborate  dull-gilt  rosettes,  the  mushroom-like  object 
standing  out  against  a  reddish  paper.  These  magnificent 
curtains  run  on  rods  ending  in  huge  scrolls,  and  are  held  up 
by  lions'  claws  in  stamped  brass,  one  at  the  top  of  each 
pleat. 

"  Over  one  of  the  sideboards  is  a  regular  cafe  clock,  draped, 
as  it  were,  with  a  sort  of  napkin  in  bronze  gilt,  an  idea  that 
quite  enchants  the  Rogrons.  They  tried  to  make  me  admire 
this  device  ;  and  I  could  find  nothing  better  to  say  than  that 
if  it  could  ever  be  proper  to  hang  a  napkin  round  a  clock 
face,  it  was,  no  doubt,  in  a  dining-room.  On  this  sideboard 
are  two  large  lamps,  like  those  which  grace  the  counters  of 
grand  restaurants.  Over  the  other  is  a  highly  decorative 
barometer,  which  seems  to  play  an  important  part  in  their 
existence  ;  Rogron  gazes  at  it  as  he  might  gaze  at  his  bride- 
elect.  Between  the  windows  the  builder  has  placed  a  white 
earthenware  stove  in  a  hideously  ornate  niche.  The  walls 
blaze  with  a  splendid  paper  in  red  and  gold,  such  as  you  will 
see  in  these  same  restaurants,  and  Rogron  chose  it  there  no 
doubt  on  the  spot. 

"Dinner  was  served  in  a  set  of  white-and-gold  china ;  the 
dessert  service  is  bright  blue  with  green  sprigs ;  but  they 
opened  the  china  closet  to  show  us  that  they  had  another 
service  of  stoneware  for  every-day  use.  The  linen  is  in  large 
cupboards  facing  the  sideboards.  Everything  is  varnished, 
shining,  new,  and  harsh  in  color.     Still,  I  could  accept  the 


PIERRETTE.  37 

dining-room  ;  it  has  a  character  of  its  own  which,  though  not 
pleasing,  is  fairly  representative  of  that  of  the  owners ;  but 
there  is  no  enduring  the  five  engravings — those  black-and- 
white  things  against  which  the  minister  of  the  interior  ought 
really  to  get  a  decree ;  they  represent  Poniatowski  leaping 
into  the  Elster ;  the  Defense  of  the  Barriere  de  Clichy,  Napo- 
leon himself  pointing  a  gun  ;  and  two  prints  of  Mazeppa,  all 
in  gilt  frames  of  a  vulgar  pattern  suitable  to  the  prints,  which 
are  enough  to  make  one  loathe  popularity.  Oh  !  how  much 
I  prefer  Madame  Julliard's  pastels  representing  fruits,  those 
capital  pastels  which  were  done  in  the  time  of  Louis  XV., 
and  which  harmonize  with  the  nice  old  dining-room  and  its 
dark,  rather  worm-eaten  panels,  which  are  at  least  character- 
istic of  the  country,  and  suit  the  heavy  family  silver,  the 
antique  china,  and  all  our  habits.  The  country  is  provincial ; 
it  becomes  ridiculous  when  it  tries  to  ape  Paris.  You  may 
perhaps  retort,  *  Vous  ttes  orfevre.  Monsieur  Josse  /  ' — '  You 
are  to  the  manner  born.'  But  I  prefer  this  old  room  of  my 
father-in-law  Tiphaine's,  with  its  heavy  curtains  of  green-and- 
white  damask,  its  Louis  XV.  chimney-piece,  its  scroll  pattern 
pier  glass,  its  old  beaded  mirrors  and  time-honored  card- 
tables ;  my  jars  of  old  Sevres,  old  blue,  mounted  in  old 
gilding  ;  my  clock  with  its  impossible  flowers,  my  out-of-date 
chandelier,  and  my  tapestried  furniture,  to  all  the  splendor 
of  their  drawing-room." 

"  What  is  it  like  ?  "  said  Monsieur  Martener,  delighted  with 
the  praise  of  the  country  so  ingeniously  brought  in  by  the 
pretty  Parisienne. 

"The  drawing-room  is  a  fine  red — as  red  as  Mademoiselle 
Sylvie  when  she  is  angry  at  losing  a  niisere.'' 

"  Sylvie-red,"  said  the  president,  and  the  word  took  its 
place  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  district. 

"The  window-curtains  —  red!  the  furniture  —  red!  the 
chimney-piece — red  marble  veined  with  yellow !  the  cande- 
labra and  clock — red  marble  veined  with  yellow,  and  mounted 


38  THE  CELIBATES. 

in  a  heavy  vulgar  style  ;  Roman  lamp-brackets  supported  on 
Greek  foliage  !  From  the  top  of  the  clock  a  lion  stares  down 
on  you,  stupidly,  as  the  Rogrons  stare  ;  a  great  good-natured 
lion,  the  ornamental  lion  so-called,  which  will  long  continue 
to  dethrone  real  lions;  he  spends  his  life  clutching  a  black 
ball  exactly  like  a  deputy  of  the  left.  Perhaps  it  is  a  consti- 
tutional allegory.  The  dial  of  this  clock  is  an  extraordinary 
piece  of  work. 

"The  chimney  glass  is  framed  with  appliqu^  ornaments, 
which  look  poor  and  cheap,  though  they  are  a  novelty.  But 
the  upholsterer's  genius  shines  most  in  a  panel  of  red  stuff  of 
which  the  radiating  folds  all  centre  in  a  rosette  in  the  middle 
of  the  chimney-board — a  romantic  poem  composed  expressly 
for  the  Rogrons,  who  display  it  with  ecstasy.  From  the  ceil- 
ing hangs  a  chandelier,  carefully  wrapped  in  a  green  cotton 
shroud,  and  with  reason  ;  it  is  in  the  very  worst  taste,  raw-toned 
bronze,  with  even  more  detestable  tendrils  of  brown  gold. 
Under  it  a  round  tea-table  of  marble,  with  more  yellow  than 
ever  in  the  red,  displays  a  shining  metal  tray,  on  which  glit- 
ter cups  of  painted  china — such  painting  ! — arranged  round  a 
cut-glass  sugar-basin,  so  bold  in  style  that  our  grandchildren 
will  open  their  eyes  in  amazement  at  the  gilt  rings  round  the 
edge  and  the  diamond  pattern  on  the  sides,  like  a  mediaeval 
quilted  doublet,  and  at  the  tongs  for  taking  the  sugar,  which 
probably  no  one  will  ever  use. 

"This  room  is  papered  with  red  flock- paper  imitating  vel- 
vet, divided  into  panels  by  a  beading  of  gilt  brass,  finished 
at  the  corners  with  enormous  palms.  A  chromo-lithograph 
hangs  on  each  panel,  framed  most  elaborately  in  plaster  cast- 
ing of  garlands  to  imitate  fine  wood-carving.  The  furniture 
of  elm-root,  upholstered  with  satin-cloth,  classically  consists 
of  two  sofas,  two  large  easy-chairs,  six  armchairs,  and  six 
light  chairs.  The  console  is  graced  by  an  alabaster  vase, 
called  a  la  Medicis,  under  a  glass  shade,  and  by  the  much- 
talked-of  liqueur-case.    We  were  told  often  enough  that  *  there 


PIERRETTE.  39 

is  not  such  another  in  Provins.'  In  each  window  bay,  hung 
with  splendid  red  silk  curtains  and  lace  curtains  besides, 
stands  a  card-table.  The  carpet  is  Aubusson ;  the  Rogrons 
have  not  failed  to  get  hold  of  the  crimson  ground  with  medal- 
lions of  flowers,  the  vulgarest  of  all  the  common  patterns. 

"The  room  looks  uninhabited;  there  are  no  books  or 
prints — none  of  the  little  things  that  furnish  a  table,"  and 
she  looked  at  her  own  table  covered  with  fashionable  trifles, 
albums,  and  the  pretty  toys  that  were  given  her.  "There 
are  no  flowers,  none  of  the  little  nothings  that  fade  and  are 
renewed.  It  is  all  as  cold  and  dry  as  Mademoiselle  Sylvie. 
Buffbn  is  right  in  saying  that  the  style  is  the  man,  and  cer- 
tainly drawing-rooms  have  a  style  !  " 

Pretty  Madame  Tiphaine  went  on  with  her  description  by 
epigrams ;  and  from  this  specimen,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the 
rooms  in  which  the  brother  and  sister  really  lived  on  the  first- 
floor,  which  they  also  displayed  to  their  guests.  Still,  no  one 
could  conceive  of  the  foolish  expenses  into  which  the  cunning 
builder  had  dragged  the  Rogrons ;  the  moulding  of  the 
doors,  the  elaborate  inside  shutters,  the  plaster  ornaments  on 
the  cornices,  the  fancy  painting,  the  brass-gilt  knobs  and 
bells,  the  ingenious  smoke-consuming  fireplaces,  the  con- 
trivance for  the  prevention  of  damp,  the  sham  inlaid  wood  on 
the  staircase,  the  elaborate  glass  and  smith's  work — in  short, 
all  the  fancy-work  which  adds  to  the  cost  of  building,  and 
delights  the  common  mind,  had  been  lavished  without  stint. 

No  one  would  go  to  the  Rogrons*  evenings  ;  their  preten- 
sions were  still-born.  There  were  abundant  reasons  for  refus- 
ing ;  every  day  was  taken  up  by  Madame  Garceland,  Madame 
Galardon,  the  two  Julliard  ladies,  Madame  Tiphaine,  the 
sous-prefet,  etc.  The  Rogrons  thought  that  giving  dinners 
was  all  that  was  needed  to  get  into  society  \  they  secured 
some  young  people  who  laughed  at  them,  and  some  diners- 
out,  such  as  are  to  be  found  in  every  part  of  the  world  ;  but 
serious  people  quite  gave  them  up.     Sylvie,  alarmed  at  the 


40  THE   CELIBATES. 

clear  loss  of  forty  thousand  francs  swallowed  up  without  any 
return  in  the  house  she  called  her  dear  house,  wanted  to  re- 
cover the  sum  by  economy.  So  she  soon  ceased  to  give  din- 
ners that  cost  from  thirty  to  forty  francs,  without  the  wine,  as 
they  failed  to  realize  her  hope  of  forming  a  circle — a  thing  as 
difficult  to  create  in  the  country  as  it  is  in  Paris.  Sylvie  dis- 
missed her  cook,  and  hired  a  country  girl  for  the  coarser 
work.     She  herself  cooked  "  to  amuse  herself." 

Thus,  fourteen  months  after  their  return  home,  the  brother 
and  sister  had  drifted  into  a  life  of  isolation  and  idleness. 
Her  banishment  from  "  the  world  "  had  roused  in  Sylvie's 
soul  an  intense  hatred  of  the  Tiphaines,  Julliards,  Auffrays, 
and  Garcelands — in  short,  of  everybody  in  Provins  society, 
wliich  she  stigmatized  as  a  "  clique,"  with  which  she  was  on 
the  most  distant  terms.  She  would  gladly  have  set  up  a  rival 
circle  ;  but  the  second-rate  citizen  class  was  composed  entirely 
of  small  trades-people,  never  free  but  on  Sundays  and  holi- 
days ;  or  of  persons  in  ill-odor,  like  Vinet  the  lawyer  and 
Doctor  Neraud;  or  of  rank  Bonapartists,  like  General  Gou- 
raud  ;  and  Rogron  very  rashly  made  friends  with  these,  though 
the  upper  set  had  vainly  warned  him  against  them.  The 
brother  and  sister  were  obliged  to  sit  together  by  the  fire  of 
their  dining-room  stove,  talking  over  their  business,  the  faces 
of  their  customers,  and  other  equally  amusing  matters. 

The  second  winter  did  not  come  to  an  end  without  their 
being  almost  crushed  by  its  weight  of  dullness.  They  had  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  spending  the  hours  of  their  day.  As  they 
went  to  bed  at  night,  they  thought,  "  One  more  over  !"  They 
spun  out  the  morning  by  getting  up  late  and  dressing  slowly. 
Rogron  shaved  himself  every  morning  ;  he  examined  his  face 
and  described  to  his  sister  the  changes  he  fancied  he  noted  in 
it;  he  squabbled  with  the  maid  over  the  temperature  of  the 
hot  water;  he  wandered  into  the  garden  to  see  if  the  flowers 
were  sprouting;  he  ventured  down  to  the  river-bank,  where 


PIERRETTE.  41 

he  had  built  a  summer-house ;  he  examined  the  woodwork  of 
the  house.  Had  it  warped?  Had  the  settling  split  any  of 
the  panels?  Was  the  paint  wearing  well?  Then  he  came  in 
to  discuss  his  anxieties  as  to  a  sick,  hen,  or  some  spot  where 
the  damp  had  left  stains,  talking  to  his  sister,  who  affected 
hurry  in  laying  the  table  while  she  scolded  the  maid.  The 
barometer  was  the  most  useful  article  in  the  house  to  Rogron  ; 
he  consulted  it  for  no  reason,  tapped  it  familiarly  like  a  friend, 
and  then  said,  "Vile  weather!"  to  which  his  sister  would 
reply,  "Pooh,  the  weather  is  quite  seasonable."  If  anybody 
called,  he  would  boast  of  the  excellence  of  this  instrument. 

Their  breakfast  took  up  some  little  time.  How  slowly  did 
these  two  beings  masticate  each  mouthful.  And  their  diges- 
tion was  perfect :  they  had  no  cause  to  fear  catarrh  of  the 
stomach.  By  reading  the  Ruche  and  the  Constitutionnel  they 
got  on  to  noon.  They  paid  a  third  of  the  subscription  to 
the  Paris  paper  with  Vinet  and  Colonel  Gouraud.  Rogron 
himself  carried  the  paper  to  the  colonel,  who  lived  in  the 
square,  lodging  with  Monsieur  Martener;  the  soldier's  long 
stories  were  an  immense  delight  to  him.  Rogron  could  only 
wonder  why  the  colonel  was  considered  dangerous.  He  was 
such  an  idiot  as  to  speak  to  him  of  the  ostracism  under  which 
he  lived,  and  retail  the  sayings  of  the  "clique."  God  only 
knows  what  the  colonel — who  feared  no  one,  and  was  as  re- 
doubtable with  the  pistol  as  with  the  sword — had  to  say  of 
"la  Tiphaine  "  and  "her  Julliard,"  of  the  ministerial  offi- 
cials of  the  upper  town — "men  brought  over  by  foreigners, 
capable  of  anything  to  stick  in  their  places,  cooking  the  lists 
of  votes  at  the  elections  to  suit  themselves,"  and  the  like. 

At  about  two  o'clock  Rogron  sallied  forth  for  a  little  walk. 
He  was  quite  happy  when  a  storekeeper,  standing  at  his  door, 
stopped  him  with  a  "How  d'ye  do,  Pere  Rogron?"  He 
gossiped,  and  asked,  "What  news  in  the  town?"  heard  and 
repeated  scandal,  or  the  tittle-tattle  of  Provins.  He  walked 
to  the  upper  town,  or  in  the  sunk  roads,  according  to  the 


42  THE   CELIBATES. 

weather.  Sometimes  he  met  other  old  men  airing  themselves 
in  like  manner.  Such  meetings  were  happy  events  in  the 
course  of  such  a  retired  life. 

There  were  at  Provins  certain  men  who  were  out  of  conceit 
with  the  life  of  Paris,  learned  and  modest  men,  living  with 
their  books.  Imagine  Rogron's  frame  of  mind  when  he  lis- 
tened to  a  suf)ernumerary  judge  named  Desfondrilles,  more  of  an 
archaeologist  than  a  lawyer,  saying  to  a  man  of  education,  old 
Monsieur  Martener,  the  doctor's  father,  as  he  pointed  to  the 
valley — 

'•  Will  you  tell  me  why  the  idlers  of  all  Europe  flock  to 
Spa  rather  than  to  Provins,  when  the  waters  of  Provins  are 
acknowledged  to  be  superior  by  the  whole  French  faculty  of 
medicine,  and  to  have  effects  and  an  energy  worthy  of  the 
medicinal  properties  of  our  roses?  " 

*'  What  do  you  expect?  "  replied  the  man  of  the  world, 
"  it  is  one  of  the  caprices  of  caprice,  and  just  as  inexplicable. 
The  wines  of  Bordeaux  were  unknown  a  hundred  years  ago. 
Marechal  Richelieu,  one  of  the  grandest  figures  of  the  last 
century,  the  Alcibiades  of  France,  was  made  governor  of 
Guyenne.  His  chest  was  delicate — the  world  knew  why — 
the  wine  of  the  country  strengthened  and  restored  him  to 
health.  Bordeaux  at  once  made  a  hundred  millions  of  francs 
a  year,  and  the  Marshal  extended  the  Bordeaux  district  as 
far  as  Angoulgme  and  as  far  as  Cahors ;  in  short,  to  forty 
leagues  in  every  direction !  Who  knows  where  the  vineyards 
of  Bordeaux  end  ?  And  there  is  no  equestrian  statue  of  the 
Marshal  at  Bordeaux  !  ' ' 

"  Ah  !  if  such  an  event  should  take  place  at  Provins  in  this 
century  or  the  next,"  Monsieur  Desfondrilles  went  on,  "  I  hope 
that  either  on  the  little  square  in  the  lower  town,  or  on  the 
castle,  or  somewhere  in  the  upper  town,  some  bas-relief  would 
be  seen  representing  the  head  of  Monsieur  Opoix,  the  redis- 
coverer  of  the  mineral  waters  of  Provins  !  " 

'*  But,  ray  dear  sir,  it  would  perhaps  be  impossible  to  reha- 


PIERRETTE.  43 

bilitate  Provins,"  said  old  Monsieur  Martener.  "The  town 
is  bankrupt." 

At  this  Rogron  opened  his  eyes  wide,  and  exclaimed — 
"What!" 

"  Provins  was  formerly  a  capital  which,  in  the  twelfth 
century,  held  its  own  as  a  rival  to  Paris,  when  the  counts  of 
Champagne  held  their  court  here  as  King  Ren6  held  his  in 
Provence,"  replied  the  man  of  learning.  "In  those  days 
civilization,  pleasure,  poetry,  elegance,  women — in  short,  all 
the  splendor  of  social  life  was  not  exclusively  restricted  to 
Paris,  Towns  find  it  as  hard  as  houses  of  business  to  rise 
again  from  ruin.  Nothing  is  left  to  Provins  but  the  fragrance 
of  its  historic  past  and  that  of  its  roses — and  a  sous-pre- 
fecture." 

"Oh  !  to  think  what  France  might  be  if  she  still  had  all 
her  feudal  capitals!"  said  Desfondrilles.  "Can  our  sous- 
prefets  fill  the  place  of  the  poetic,  gallant,  and  warlike  race 
of  Thibault,  who  made  Provins  what  Ferrara  was  in  Italy, 
what  Weimar  was  in  Germany,  and  Munich  would  like  to  be 
in  our  day?" 

"  Provins  was  a  capital?  "  asked  Rogron. 

"  Why,  where  have  you  dropped  from?  "  said  Desfondrilles 
the  archaeologist. 

The  lawyer  struck  the  pavement  of  the  upper  town  where 
they  were  standing  with  his  stick:  "Do  you  not  know,"  he 
cried,  "  that  all  this  part  of  Provins  is  built  on  crypts?" 

"Crypts?" 

"Yes,  to  be  sure,  crypts  of  unaccountable  loftiness  and 
extent.     They  are  like  cathedral  aisles,  full  of  pillars." 

"Monsieur  Desfondrilles  is  writing  a  great  antiquarian 
work  in  which  he  intends  to  describe  these  singular  struc- 
tures," said  old  Martener,  seeing  the  lawyer  mount  his 
hobby. 

Rogron  came  home  enchanted  to  think  that  his  house  stood 
in  this  valley.     The  crypts  of  Provins  kept  him  occupied  for 


44  THE   CELIBATES. 

five  or  six  days  in  exploring  them,  and  for  several  evenings 
afiorded  a  subject  of  conversation  to  the  old  couple.  Thus 
Rogron  generally  picked  up  something  about  old  Provins, 
about  the  intermarriages  of  the  families,  or  some  stale  political 
news  which  he  retailed  to  his  sister.  And  a  hundred  times 
over  in  the  course  of  his  walk — several  times  even  of  the 
same  person — he  would  ask,  **  Well,  what  is  the  news  ?  What 
has  happened  lately?  "  When  he  came  in  he  threw  himself 
on  a  sofa  in  the  drawing-room  as  if  he  were  tired  out,  but 
really  he  was  only  weary  of  his  own  weight. 

He  got  on  to  dinner-time  by  going  twenty  times  to  and  fro 
between  the  drawing-room  and  the  kitchen,  looking  at  the 
clock,  opening  and  shutting  doors.  So  long  as  the  brother 
and  sister  spent  the  evenings  in  other  houses  they  got  through 
the  hours  till  bedtime,  but  after  they  were  reduced  to  staying 
at  home  the  evening  was  a  desert  to  traverse.  Sometimes 
people  on  their  way  home,  after  spending  the  evening  out,  as 
they  crossed  the  little  piazza,  heard  sounds  in  the  Rogrons' 
house  as  if  the  brother  were  murdering  the  sister  ;  they  recog- 
nized them  as  the  terrific  yawns  of  a  haberdasher  driven  to 
bay.  The  two  machines  had  nothing  to  grind  with  their 
rusty  wheels,  so  they  creaked. 

The  brother  talked  of  marrying,  but  with  a  sense  of  despair. 
He  felt  himself  old  and  worn ;  a  wife  terrified  him.  Sylvie, 
who  understood  the  need  for  a  third  person  in  the  house, 
then  remembered  their  poor  cousin,  for  whom  no  one  in 
Provins  had  ever  inquired,  for  everybody  supposed  that  little 
Madame  Lorrain  and  her  daughter  were  both  dead.  Sylvie 
Rogron  never  lost  anything ;  she  was  too  thoroughly  an  old 
maid  to  mislay  anything,  whatever  it  might  be.  She  affected 
to  have  found  the  letter  from  the  Lorrains  so  as  to  make  it 
natural  that  she  should  mention  Pierrette  to  her  brother,  and 
he  was  almost  happy  at  the  possibility  of  having  a  little  girl 
about  the  house.  Sylvie  wrote  to  the  old  Lorrains  in  a  half- 
business-like,  half-affectionate  tone,  attributing  the  delay  in 


PIERRETTE.  46 

her  answer  to  the  winding  up  of  their  affairs,  to  their  move 
back  to  Provins,  and  settling  there.  She  affected  to  be  anx- 
ious to  have  her  little  cousin  with  her,  allowing  it  to  be  un- 
derstood that  if  Monsieur  Rogron  should  not  marry,  Pierrette 
would  some  day  inherit  twelve  thousand  francs  a  year.  It 
would  be  needful  to  have  been,  like  Nebuchadnezzar,  to  some 
extent  a  wild  beast,  shut  up  in  a  cage  in  a  beast-garden  with 
nothing  to  prey  on  but  butcher's  meat  brought  in  by  the 
keeper,  or  else  a  retired  tradesman  with  no  shop-clerks  to 
nag,  to  irnagine  the  impatience  with  which  the  brother  and 
sister  awaited  their  cousin  Lorrain.  Three  days  after  the 
despatch  of  the  letter  they  were  already  wondering  when  the 
child  would  arrive. 

Sylvie  discerned  in  her  so-called  generosity  to  her  penniless 
cousin  a  means  of  changing  the  views  of  Provins  society  with 
regard  to  herself.  She  called  on  Madame  Tiphaine,  who  had 
stricken  them  with  her  disapproval,  and  who  aimed  at  creat- 
ing an  upper  class  at  Provins,  like  that  at  Geneva,  and  blew 
the  trumpet  to  announce  the  advent  of  her  cousin  Pierrette, 
the  child  of  Colonel  Lorrain,  pitying  her  woes,  and  con- 
gratulating herself  as  a  lucky  woman  on  having  a  pretty  young 
heiress  to  introduce  in  society. 

"You  have  been  a  long  time  discovering  her,"  remarked 
Madame  Tiphaine,  who  sat  enthroned  on  a  sofa  by  her  fire- 
side. 

Madame  Garceland,  in  a  few  words  spoken  in  an  under- 
tone during  a  deal,  revived  the  story  of  the  Auffray  property. 
The  notary  related  the  innkeeper's  iniquities. 

"Where  is  the  poor  little  thing?"  asked  the  president 
politely. 

"In  Brittany,"  said  Rogron. 

"  But  Brittany  is  a  wide  word  !  "  remarked  Monsieur  Le- 
sourd,  the  public  prosecutor. 

"  Her  grandfather  and  grandmother  wrote  to  us.  When 
was  it,  my  dear?"  asked  Rogron. 


46  THE   CELIBATES. 

Sylvie,  absorbed  in  asking  Madame  Garceland  where  she 
had  bought  the  stuif  for  her  dress,  did  not  foresee  the  effect 
of  her  answer,  and  said,  "  Before  we  sold  our  business." 

"  And  you  answered  three  days  ago,  Mademoiselle  Sylvie?" 
exclaimed  the  notary. 

Sylvie  turned  as  red  as  the  hottest  coals  in  the  fire. 

"We  wrote  to  the  Institution  of  Saint- Jacques,"  replied 
Rogron. 

"There  is  a  sort  of  asylum  there  for  old  people,"  said  a 
lawyer,  who  had  been  supernumerary  judge  at  Nantes.  "  But 
she  cannot  be  there,  for  they  only  take  in  persons  who  are 
past  sixty." 

"  She  is  there  with  her  grandmother  Lorrain,"  said  Rogron. 

"  She  had  a  little  money,  the  eight  thousand  francs  left  her 
by  your  father — no,  I  mean  your  grandfather,"  said  the 
notary,  blundering  intentionally. 

"Indeed!"  said  Rogron,  looking  stupid,  and  not  under- 
standing this  sarcasm. 

"  Then  you  knew  nothing  of  your  first  cousin's  fortune  or 
position  ?  ' '  asked  the  president. 

"  If  Monsieur  Rogron  had  known  it,  he  would  not  have 
left  her  in  a  place  which  is  no  more  than  a  respectable  work- 
house," said  the  judge  severely.  "I  remember  now  that  a 
house  belonging  to  Monsieur  and  Madame  Lorrain  was  sold 
at  Nantes  under  an  execution  ;  and  Mademoiselle  Lorrain  lost 
her  claims,  for  I  was  the  commissioner  in  charge." 

The  notary  spoke  of  Colonel  Lorrain,  who,  if  he  were 
alive,  would  indeed  be  astonished  to  think  of  his  child  being 
in  an  institution  like  that  of  Saint-Jacques.  The  Rogrons 
presently  withdrew,  thinking  the  world  very  spiteful.  Sylvie 
perceived  that  her  news  had  had  no  success ;  she  had  ruined 
herself  in  everybody's  opinion ;  henceforth  she  had  no  hope 
of  making  her  way  in  the  higher  society  of  Provins. 

From  that  day  the  Rogrons  no  longer  dissembled  their 
hatred  of  the  great  citizen-families  of  Provins,   and  of  all 


PIERRETTE.  47 

their  adherents.  The  brother  now  repeated  all  the  Liberal 
fables  which  Lawyer  Vinet  and  Colonel  Gouraud  had  crammed 
him  with  about  the  Tiphaines,  the  Guendes,  the  Garcelands, 
the  Guepins,  and  the  Julliards. 

"  I  tell  you  what,  Sylvie,  I  don't  see  why  Madame  Tiph- 
aine  should  turn  a  cold  shoulder  on  the  Rue  Saint-Denis :  the 
best  of  her  beauty  was  made  there.  Madame  Roguin,  her 
mother,  is  a  cousin  of  the  Guillaumes  of  the  Cat  and  Racket, 
who  gave  over  their  business  to  their  son-in-law  Joseph  Lebas. 
Her  father  is  that  notary,  that  Roguin,  who  failed  in  1819, 
and  ruined  the  Birotteaus.  So  Madame  Tiphaine's  money  is 
stolen  wealth ;  for  what  is  a  notary's  wife  who  takes  her  own 
settlement  out  of  the  fire  and  allows  her  husband  to  become  a 
fraudulent  bankrupt  ?  A  pretty  thing  indeed  !  Ah  !  I  under- 
stand !  She  got  her  daughter  married  to  live  here  at  Provins 
through  her  connection  with  the  banker  du  Tillet.  And 
these  people  are  proud  !  Well !  However,  that  is  what  the 
world  is!" 

On  the  day  when  Denis  Rogron  and  his  sister  Sylvie  thus 
broke  out  in  abuse  of  the  clique,  they  had  without  knowing 
it  become  persons  of  importance,  and  were  on  the  high-road 
to  having  some  society ;  their  drawing-room  was  on  the  point 
of  becoming  a  centre  of  interests  which  only  needed  a  stage. 
The  retired  haberdasher  assumed  historical  and  political  dig- 
nity, for,  still  without  knowing  it,  he  gave  strength  and  unity 
to  the  hitherto  unstable  elements  of  the  Liberal  party  at 
Provins.  And  this  was  the  way  of  it :  The  early  career  of  the 
Rogrons  had  been  anxiously  observed  by  Colonel  Gouraud 
and  the  advocate  Vinet,  who  had  been  thrown  together  by 
their  isolation  and  their  agreement  of  ideas.  These  two  men 
professed  equal  patriotism,  and  for  the  same  reasons  they 
wanted  to  acquire  importance.  But  though  they  were  anxious 
to  be  leaders,  they  lacked  followers.  The  Liberals  of  Provins 
comprised  an  old  soldier  who  sold  lemonade;  an  innkeeper; 
Monsieur  Cournant,  a  notary.  Monsieur  Auffray's  rival ;  Men- 


48  THE  CELIBATES. 

sieur  N6raud,  a  physician,  Doctor  Martener's  rival ;  and  some 
independent  persons,  farmers  scattered  about  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  holders  of  national  stock.  The  colonel  and  the 
lawyer,  glad  to  attract  an  idiot  whose  money  might  help  them 
in  their  manoeuvres,  who  would  support  their  subscriptions, 
who,  in  some  cases,  would  take  the  bull  by  the  horns,  and 
whose  house  would  be  useful  as  a  town-hall  for  the  party,  took 
advantage  of  the  Rogrons'  hostility  towards  the  aristocrats  of 
the  place.  The  colonel,  the  lawyer,  and  Rogron  had  a  slight 
bond  in  their  joint  subscription  to  the  Constitutionnel ;  it 
would  not  be  difficult  for  the  colonel  to  make  a  Liberal  of  the 
ex-haberdasher,  though  Rogron  knew  so  little  of  political 
history  that  he  had  not  heard  of  the  exploits  of  Sergeant 
Mercier ;  he  thought  he  was  a  friend  and  brother. 

The  impending  arrival  of  Pierrette  hastened  the  hatching 
of  certain  covetous  dreams  to  which  the  ignorance  and  folly 
of  the  old  bachelor  and  old  maid  had  given  rise.  The 
colonel,  seeing  that  Sylvie  had  lost  all  chance  of  getting  her 
foot  into  the  circle  of  the  Tiphaines,  had  an  idea.  Old 
soldiers  have  seen  so  many  horrors  in  so  many  lands,  so  many 
naked  corpses  grimacing  hideously  on  so  many  battlefields, 
that  an  ugly  face  has  no  terror  for  them,  so  the  colonel  took 
steady  aim  at  the  old  maid's  fortune.  This  officer,  a  short, 
fat  man,  wore  rings  in  his  ears,  which  were  already  graced  by 
bushy  tufts  of  hair.  His  floating  gray  whiskers  were  such  as 
in  1799  had  been  called  "fins."  His  large,  good-natured, 
red  face  was  somewhat  frost-bitten,  as  were  those  of  all  who 
escaped  at  the  Beresina.  His  huge,  prominent  stomach  had 
the  flattened  angle  below,  characteristic  of  an  old  cavalry 
officer  J  Gouraud  had  commanded  the  second  regiment  of 
Hussars.  His  gray  mustache  covered  a  huge  mouth — a  per- 
fect trap — the  only  word  to  describe  that  abyss  ;  he  did  not 
eat,  he  devoured  !  A  sword-cut  had  shortened  his  nose.  His 
speech  was  in  consequence  thick  and  deeply  nasal,  like  that 
ascribed  to  Capuchin  friars.     His  hands,  which  were  small, 


PIERRETTE.  49 

short,  and  broad,  were  such  as  make  a  woman  say,  **  You 
have  the  hands  of  a  thorough  scamp."  His  legs,  below  such 
a  huge  body,  looked  frail.  Within  this  active  but  clumsy 
body  lay  a  cunning  spirit,  entire  experience  of  life  and  things, 
hidden  under  the  apparent  carelessness  of  a  soldier,  and  utter 
contempt  for  the  conventionalities  of  society.  Colonel  Gou- 
raud  had  the  pension  of  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor, 
and  two  thousand  four  hundred  francs  a  year  as  half-pay — a 
thousand  crowns  a  year  in  all  for  his  whole  income. 

The  lawyer,  tall  and  lean,  had  no  talent  but  his  political 
opinions,  and  no  income  but  the  meagre  profits  of  his  busi- 
ness. At  Provins  attorneys  plead  their  own  cases.  In  view  of 
his  opinions,  the  court  listened  with  small  favor  to  Maitre 
Vinet ;  and  the  most  Liberal  farmers,  when  entangled  in  law- 
suits, would  rely  on  an  attorney  in  favor  with  the  bench 
rather  than  employ  Vinet.  This  man  was  said  to  have  led 
astray  a  rich  girl  living  near  Coulommiers,  and  to  have  com- 
pelled her  parents  to  let  her  marry  him.  His  wife  was  one 
of  the  Chargebceufs,  an  old  family  of  nobles  in  La  Brie,  who 
took  their  name  from  the  exploit  of  a  squire  in  Saint  Louis* 
expedition  to  Egypt.  She  had  incurred  her  parents'  displeas- 
ure, and  they,  to  Vinet's  knowledge,  had  arranged  to  leave 
their  whole  fortune  to  their  eldest  son,  charged,  no  doubt, 
with  a  reversion  in  favor  of  his  sister's  children.  Thus  this 
man's  first  ambitious  scheme  came  to  nothing.  The  lawyer, 
soon  haunted  by  poverty,  and  ashamed  of  not  having  enough 
to  enable  his  wife  to  keep  up  appearances,  had  made  vain 
efforts  to  get  his  foot  into  a  ministerial  career ;  but  the  rich 
branch  of  the  Chargebceufs  refused  to  assist  him.  These 
Royalists  were  strictly  moral,  and  disapproved  of  a  compul- 
sory marriage  ;  besides,  their  would-be  relation's  name  was 
Vinet ;  how  could  they  favor  any  one  so  common?  So  the 
lawyer  was  lianded  on  from  one  branch  to  another  when  he 
tried  to  utilize  his  wife's  interest  with  her  relations.  Madame 
Vinet  found  no  assistance  but  from  one  of  the  family,  a 
4 


60  THE  CELIBATES. 

widowed  Madame  Chargeboeuf,  with  a  daughter,  quite  poor, 
who  lived  at  Troyes.  And  a  day  came  when  Vinet  remem- 
bered the  kind  reception  his  wife  met  with  from  this  lady. 

Rejected  by  the  whole  world,  full  of  hatred  of  his  wife's 
family,  of  the  government  which  refused  him  an  appoint- 
ment, and  of  the  society  of  Provins,  which  would  have  noth- 
ing to  say  to  him,  Vinet  accepted  his  poverty.  His  venom 
fermented  and  gave  him  energy  to  endure.  He  became  a 
Liberal  on  perceiving  that  his  fortune  was  bound  up  with  the 
triumph  of  the  Opposition,  and  vegetated  in  a  wretched  little 
house  in  the  upper  town,  which  his  wife  seldom  quitted.  This 
girl,  born  to  a  better  fate,  lived  absolutely  alone  in  her  home 
with  her  one  child.  There  are  cases  of  poverty  nobly  met 
and  cheerfully  endured;  but  Vinet,  eaten  up  by  ambition, 
and  feeling  that  he  had  wronged  a  young  creature,  cherished 
a  dark  indignation ;  his  conscience  expanded  to  admit  every 
means  to  success.  His  face,  still  young,  changed  for  the 
worse.  People  were  sometimes  terrified  in  court  at  the  sight 
of  his  flat  viperine  head,  with  its  wide  mouth,  and  eyes  that 
glittered  through  his  spectacles;  at  hearing  his  sharp,  shrill, 
rasping  voice,  that  wrung  their  nerves.  His  muddy  com- 
plexion, patchy  with  sickly  hues  of  yellow  and  green,  re- 
vealed his  suppressed  ambitions,  his  perpetual  mortifications 
and  hidden  penury.  He  could  argue  and  harangue ;  he  had 
no  lack  of  point  and  imagery ;  he  was  learned  and  crafty. 
Accustomed  to  indulge  his  imagination  for  the  sake  of  rising 
by  hook  or  by  crook,  he  might  have  made  a  politician.  A 
man  who  hesitates  at  nothing  so  long  as  it  is  legal  is  a  strong 
man,  and  in  this  lay  Vinet's  strength. 

This  coming  athlete  of  parliamentary  debate — one  of  the 
men  who  were  to  proclaim  the  supremacy  of  the  House  of 
Orleans — had  a  disastrous  influence  over  Pierrette's  fate.  At 
present  he  wanted  to  provide  himself  with  a  weapon  by  found- 
ing a  newspaper  at  Provins.  After  having  studied  the  Rogrons 
from  afar,  with  the  assistance  of  the  colonel,  he  ended  by 


PIERRETTE,  51 

reckoning  on  the  brother.  And  this  time  he  reckoned  with 
his  host ;  his  poverty  was  to  come  to  an  end  after  seven  dolor- 
ous years,  during  which  more  than  one  day  had  come  round 
without  bread.  On  the  day  when  Gouraud  announced  to 
Vinet,  on  the  little  square,  that  the  Rogrons  had  broken  with 
the  citizen  aristocracy  and  official  circles  of  the  old  town,  the 
lawyer  nudged  him  significantly  in  the  ribs. 

"This  wife  or  that,  ugly  or  handsome,  it  must  be  all  the 
same  to  you,"  said  he.  "You  should  marry  Mademoiselle 
Rogron,  and  then  we  could  get  something  done  here " 

"I  was  thinking  of  it.  But  they  have  sent  for  the  daughter 
of  poor  Colonel  Lorrain — their  heiress,"  said  Gouraud. 

"You  could  make  them  leave  you  their  money  by  will. 
You  would  have  a  very  nicely  fitted  house." 

"  And  the  child,  after  all  !  Well,  we  shall  see,"  said  the 
colonel,  with  a  jocose  and  deeply  villainous  leer,  which  showed 
a  man  of  Vinet 's  temper  how  small  a  thing  a  little  girl  was  in 
the  eyes  of  this  old  soldier. 

Since  her  grandparents  had  gone  into  the  asylum  where 
they  were  forlornly  ending  their  days,  Pierrette,  young  and 
full  of  pride,  was  so  dreadfully  miserable  at  living  there  on 
charity,  that  she  was  happy  to  learn  that  she  had  some  rich 
connections.  On  hearing  that  she  was  leaving,  Brigaut,  the 
major's  son,  the  companion  of  her  childhood,  who  was  now 
a  joiner's  apprentice  at  Nantes,  came  to  give  her  the  money 
needful  for  her  journey  by  coach — sixty  francs,  all  the  savings 
of  his  odd  earnings  painfully  hoarded ;  Pierrette  accepted  it 
with  the  sublime  indifference  of  true  friendship,  showing  that 
she  in  similar  circumstances  would  have  been  hurt  by  thanks. 
Brigaut  had  gone  every  Sunday  to  Saint-Jacques  to  play  with 
Pierrette,  and  to  comfort  her.  The  sturdy  young  workman 
had  already  gone  through  his  delightful  apprenticeship  to  the 
perfect  and  devoted  care  that  we  give  to  the  object  of  our  in- 
voluntary choice  and   affection.     More   than  once  ere  now, 


62  THE   CELIBATES. 

Pierrette  and  he,  on  a  Sunday,  sitting  in  a  corner  of  the 
garden,  had  sketched  their  childish  dreams  on  the  veil  of  the 
future;  the  young  craftsman,  mounted  on  his  plane,  traveled 
round  the  world,  making  a  fortune  for  Pierrette,  who  waited 
for  him. 

So,  in  the  month  of  October,  1S24,  when  Pierrette  had 
almost  completed  her  eleventh  year,  she  was  placed  in  the 
care  of  the  guard  of  the  diligence  from  Nantes  to  Paris  by 
the  two  old  people  and  the  young  apprentice,  all  three  dread- 
fully sad.  The  guard  was  requested  to  put  her  into  the  coach 
for  Provins,  and  to  take  great  care  of  her.  Poor  Brigaut !  he 
ran  after  the  diligence  like  a  dog,  looking  at  his  dear  Pierrette 
as  long  as  he  could.  In  spite  of  the  child's  signals,  he  ran 
on  for  a  league  beyond  tlie  town,  and  when  he  was  exhausted 
his  eyes  sent  a  last  tearful  glance  at  Pierrette,  who  cried  when 
she  could  see  him  no  more.  Pierrette  put  her  head  out  of  the 
window,  and  discerned  her  friend  standing  squarely  and 
watching  the  heavy  vehicle  that  left  him  behind. 

The  Lorrains  and  Brigaut  had  so  little  knowledge  of  life 
that  the  little  Bretonne  had  not  a  sou  left  when  she  arrived  in 
Paris.  The  guard,  to  whom  the  child  prattled  of  rich  rela- 
tions, paid  her  expenses  at  an  inn  in  Paris,  made  the  guard 
of  the  Troyes  coach  repay  him,  and  desired  him  to  deliver 
Pierrette  to  her  family  and  collect  the  debt,  exactly  as  if  she 
were  a  parcel  by  carrier. 

Four  days  after  leaving  Nantes,  at  about  nine  o'clock  one 
Monday  evening,  a  kind,  burly  old  guard  of  the  Messageries 
Royales  took  Pierrette  by  the  hand,  and,  while  the  coach  was 
unloading  in  the  High  Street  such  passengers  and  parcels  as 
were  to  be  deposited  at  Provins,  he  led  her,  with  no  luggage 
but  two  frocks,  two  pairs  of  stockings,  and  two  shifts,  to  the 
house  pointed  out  to  him  by  the  office  clerk  as  that  of 
Mademoiselle  Rogron. 

"  Good-morning,  mademoiselle,  and  gents  all,"  said  the 
guard.     *'  I  have  brought  you  a  cousin  of  yours,  and  here  she 


/     HAVE    BROUGHT    YOU    A    COUSIN     OF    YOURS,     AND 
HERE    SHE    BE." 


PIERRETTE.  53 

be,  and  a  pretty  dear,  too.  You  have  forty-seven  francs  to 
pay.  Though  your  little  girl  has  no  weight  of  baggage,  please 
to  sign  my  way-book." 

Mademoiselle  Sylvie  and  her  brother  gave  way  to  their 
delight  and  astonishment. 

"Begging  your  pardon,"  said  the  guard,  "my  coach  is 
waiting — sign  my  sheet  and  give  me  forty-seven  francs  and 
sixty  centimes,  and  what  you  please  for  me  and  the  guard 
from  Nantes,  for  we  have  taken  as  much  care  of  her  as  if  she 
were  our  own.  We  have  paid  out  for  her  bed  and  food,  her 
place  in  the  coach  here,  and  other  liltle  things." 

"Forty-seven  francs  and  twelve  sous  ?  "  exclaimed  Sylvie. 

"  You're  never  going  to  beat  me  down  ?  "  cried  the  guard. 

"  But  where  is  the  invoice?  "  said  Rogron. 

"  The  invoice  !     Here  is  my  way-bill." 

"You  can  talk  afterwards,  pay  now!  "  said  Sylvie  to  her 
brother;  " you  see,  you  cannot  help  paying." 

Rogron  went  to  fetch  forty-seven  francs  twelve  sous. 

"And  nothing  for  us — for  my  pal  and  me?"  said  the 
guard. 

Sylvia  produced  a  two-franc  piece  from  the  depths  of  her 
old  velvet  bag,  where  her  keys  lurked  in  bunches. 

"  Thank  you — keep  it,"  said  the  man.  "  We  would  rather 
have  looked  after  the  little  girl  for  her  own  sake."  He  took 
up  his  sheet  and  went  out,  saying  to  the  servant-girl :  "A 
nice  place  this  is  !  There  are  crocodiles  of  that  sort  without 
going  to  Egypt  for  'em." 

"  Those  people  are  horribly  coarse !  "  said  Sylvie,  who  had 
heard  his  speech. 

"  Dame  !  they  took  care  of  the  child,"  replied  Adele,  with 
her  hands  on  her  hips. 

"We  are  not  obliged  to  live  with  him,"  said  Rogron. 

"  Where  is  she  to  sleep?  "  asked  the  maid. 

Such  was  the  reception  that  met  Pierrette  Lorrain  on  her 
arrival  at  her  cousins'  house,  while  they  looked  at  her  with  a 


54  THE   CELIBATES. 

bewildered  air.  She  was  flung  on  their  hands  like  a  parcel, 
with  no  transition  between  the  wretched  room  in  which  she 
had  lived  with  her  grandparents  and  her  cousins'  dining- 
room,  which  struck  her  as  palatial.  She  stood  there  mute 
and  shy.  To  any  one  but  these  retired  haberdashers  the  little 
Bretonne  would  have  been  adorable  in  her  frock  of  coarse  blue 
serge,  a  pink  cotton  apron,  her  blue  stockings,  thick  shoes, 
and  white  kerchief;  her  little  red  hands  were  covered  by 
knitted  mittens  of  red  wool  edged  with  white  that  the  guard 
had  bought  for  her.  Her  little  Brittany  cap,  which  had  been 
washed  in  Paris — it  had  gotten  tumbled  in  the  course  of  the 
journey  from  Nantes — really  looked  like  a  glory  round  her 
bright  face.  This  native  cap,  made  of  fine  cambric,  with  a 
stiff  lace  border  ironed  into  flat  pleats,  deserves  a  description, 
it  is  so  smart  and  so  simple.  The  light,  filtered  through  the 
muslin  and  lace,  casts  a  half-shadow,  a  twilight  softness,  on 
the  face ;  it  gives  it  the  virginal  grace  which  painters  try  to 
find  on  their  palettes,  and  which  Leopold  Robert  has  suc- 
ceeded in  lending  to  the  Raphael-like  face  of  the  woman 
holding  a  child  in  his  picture  of  "The  Reapers."  Within 
this  setting  of  broken  lights  shone  an  artless  rose  and  white 
face,  beaming  with  vigorous  health.  The  heat  of  the  room 
brought  the  blood  to  her  head,  and  it  suffused  the  edge  of  her 
tiny  ears  with  fire,  tinging  her  lips  and  the  tip  of  a  finely  cut 
nose,  while  by  contrast  it  made  her  bright  complexion  look 
whiter  than  before. 

"Well,  have  you  nothing  to  say  to  us?"  said  Sylvie.  "I 
am  your  cousin  Sylvie,  and  that  is  your  cousin  Denis." 

"  Are  you  hungry?  "  asked  Rogron. 

"When  did  you  leave  Nantes?"  asked  Sylvie. 

"  She  is  dumb,"  said  Rogron. 

"Poor  child,  she  has  very  few  clothes  to  her  back!  "  ob- 
served sturdy  Adele,  as  she  untied  the  bundle  wrapped  in  a 
handkerchief  belonging  to  old  Lorrain. 

"  Kiss  your  cousin,"  said  Sylvie.     Pierrette  kissed  Rogron. 


PIERRETTE.  56 

"Yes,  kiss  your  cousin,"  said  Rogron.  Pierrette  kissed 
Sylvie. 

"She  is  scared  by  the  journey,  poor  little  thing;  perhaps 
she  is  sleepy,"  said  Adele. 

Pierrette  felt  a  sudden  and  invincible  aversion  for  her  two 
relations,  a  feeling  she  had  never  before  known.  Sylvie  and 
the  maid  went  to  put  the  little  girl  to  bed  in  the  room  on  the 
second  floor  where  Brigaut  was  to  see  the  cotton  curtain. 
There  were  in  this  attic  a  small  bed  with  a  pole  painted  blue, 
from  which  hung  a  cotton  curtain,  a  chest  of  drawers  of 
walnut-wood,  with  no  marble  top,  a  smaller  table  of  the  same 
wood,  a  looking-glass,  a  common  bed-table,  and  three  wretched 
chairs.  The  walls  and  sloping  roof  to  the  front  were  covered 
with  a  cheap  blue  paper  flowered  with  black.  The  floor  was 
painted  and  waxed,  and  struck  cold  to  the  feet.  There  was 
no  carpet  but  a  thin  bedside  rug  made  of  selvages.  The 
chimney-shelf,  of  cheap  marble,  was  graced  with  a  mirror, 
two  candlesticks  of  copper  gilt,  and  a  vulgar  alabaster  vase 
with  two  pigeons  drinking  to  serve  as  handles ;  this  Sylvie 
had  had  in  her  room  in  Paris. 

"  Shall  you  be  comfortable  here,  child  ?  "  asked  Sylvie. 

"  Oh  !  it  is  beautiful?  "  replied  the  little  girl  in  her  silvery 
treble. 

"  She  is  not  hard  to  please,"  muttered  the  sturdy  peasant- 
woman  to  herself.  "  I  had  better  warm  the  bed,  I  suppose  ?  " 
she  asked. 

"Yes,"  said  Sylvie,  "  the  sheets  may  be  damp." 

Adele  brought  a  headkerchief  of  her  own  when  she  came 
up  with  the  warming-pan  ;  and  Pierrette,  who  had  hitherto 
slept  in  sheets  of  coarse  Brittany  linen,  was  amazed  at  the 
fine,  soft  cotton  sheets.  When  the  little  girl  was  settled  and 
in  bed,  Adele,  as  she  went  downstairs,  could  not  help  ex- 
claiming, "  All  her  things  put  together  are  not  worth  three 
francs,  mademoiselle  !  " 

Since  adopting  her  system  of  strict  economy,  Sylvie  always 


66  THE   CELIBATES. 

made  the  servant  sit  in  the  dining-room,  so  as  to  have  but  one 
lamp  and  one  fire.  When  Colonel  Gouraud  and  Vinet  came, 
Adele  withdrew  to  her  kitchen.  Pierrette's  arrival  kept 
them  talking  for  the  rest  of  the  evening. 

"We  must  get  her  some  clothes  to-morrow,"  said  Sylvie. 
"She  has  hardly  a  stitch." 

**  She  has  no  shoes  but  those  thick  ones  she  had  on,  and 
they  weigh  a  pound,"  said  Adele. 

"They  wear  them  so  in  those  parts,"  said  Rogron. 

"  How  she  looked  at  the  room,  which  is  none  too  fine 
either,  for  a  cousin  of  yours,  mademoiselle  !  " 

**  So  much  the  better;  hold  your  tongue.  You  see  she  is 
delighted  with  it." 

"  Lord  above  us  !  what  shifts !  They  must  rub  her  skin 
raw.  But  none  of  these  things  are  of  any  use,"  said  Adele, 
turning  out  the  contents  of  Pierrette's  bundle. 

Till  ten  o'clock  master,  mistress,  and  maid  were  busy  de- 
ciding of  what  stuff  and  at  what  price  the  shifts  should  be 
made,  how  many  pairs  of  stockings  and  of  what  quality,  and 
how  many  under-petticoats  would  be  needed,  and  calculating 
the  cost  of  Pierrette's  wardrobe. 

"  You  will  not  get  off  for  less  than  three  hundred  francs," 
said  Rogron  to  his  sister,  as  he  carried  the  price  of  each 
article  in  his  head  from  long  practice,  and  added  up  the 
total  from  memory. 

"Three  hundred  francs  !  "  exclaimed  Sylvie. 

"  Yes,  three  hundred  ;  work  it  out  yourself." 

The  brother  and  sister  began  again,  and  made  it  three  hun- 
dred francs  without  the  sewing. 

"Three  hundred  francs  at  one  cast  of  the  net!"  cried 
Sylvie,  who  went  to  bed  on  the  idea  so  ingeniously  expressed 
by  this  proverbial  figure  of  speech. 

Pierrette  was  one  of  those  children  of  love  whom  love  has 
blessed  with  tenderness,  cheerfulness,  brightness,  generosity, 
and  devotedness ;  nothing  had  as  yet  chilled  or  crushed  her 


PIERRETTE.  57 

heart ;  it  was  almost  wildly  sensitive,  and  the  way  she  was  re- 
ceived by  her  relations  weighed  on  it  painfully.  Though 
Brittany  had  to  her  been  a  home  of  poverty,  it  had  also  been 
a  home  of  affection.  Though  the  old  Lorrains  were  the  most 
unskillful  traders,  they  were  the  simplest,  most  loving,  most 
caressing  souls  in  the  world,  as  all  disinterested  people  are. 
At  Pen-Hocl  tlieir  little  granddaughter  had  had  no  teaching 
but  that  of  nature.  Pierrette  went  as  she  would  in  a  boat  on 
the  pools,  she  ran  about  the  village  or  the  fields  with  her 
companion  Jacques  Brigaut,  exactly  like  Paul  and  Virginia. 
Both  the  children,  spoiled  and  petted  by  every  one,  and  as 
free  as  the  air,  ran  after  the  thousand  joys  of  childhood  ;  in 
summer  they  went  to  watch  the  fishermen,  they  caught  in- 
sects, plucked  flowers,  and  gardened ;  in  winter  they  made 
slides,  built  smart  snow-palaces  and  snow-men,  or  made 
snowballs  to  pelt  each  other  They  were  everywhere  wel- 
come ;  everybody  smiled  on  them. 

When  it  was  time  that  they  should  learn  something,  mis- 
fortunes came.  Jacques,  left  destitute  by  his  father's  death, 
was  apprenticed  by  his  relations  to  a  cabinetmaker,  and  main- 
tained by  charity,  as  Pierrette  was  soon  after  in  the  asylum  of 
Saint-Jacques.  But  even  in  this  almshouse,  pretty  little  Pier- 
rette had  been  made  much  of,  loved,  and  kindly  treated  by 
all.  The  child,  thus  accustomed  to  so  much  affection,  no 
longer  found,  in  the  home  of  these  longed-for  and  wealthy  re- 
lations, the  look,  the  tone,  the  words,  the  manner  which  she 
had  hitherto  met  with  in  every  one,  even  in  the  guards  of 
the  diligences.  Thus  her  amazement,  already  great,  was 
complicated  by  the  changed  moral  atmosphere  into  which  she 
had  been  plunged.  The  heart  can  turn  suddenly  cold  and 
hot  as  the  body  can.  The  poor  child  longed  to  cry  without 
knowing  what  for.     She  was  tired,  and  she  fell  asleep. 

Accustomed  to  rise  very  early,  like  all  country-bred  chil- 
dren, Pierrette  awoke  next  morning  two  hours  before  the  cook. 
She  dressed,  trotted  about  her  room  over  her  cousin's  head, 


58  THE   CELIBATES. 

looked  out  on  the  little  square,  and  was  going  downstairs; 
she  was  astonished  at  the  splendor  of  the  staircase ;  she  exam- 
ined every  detail — the  rosettes,  the  brass-work,  the  mouldings, 
the  painting,  etc.  Then  she  went  down ;  she  could  not  open 
the  garden  door,  so  she  came  up  again  ;  went  down  once 
more  when  Adele  was  about,  and  sprang  into  the  garden. 
She  took  possession  of  it,  ran  to  the  river,  was  amazed  by 
the  summer-house,  went  into  the  summer-house ;  she  had 
enough  to  see  and  wonder  at  in  all  she  saw  till  her  cousin 
Sylvie  was  up.     During  breakfast  Sylvie  said  to  her — 

"  So  it  was  you,  little  bird,  who  was  trotting  up  and  down- 
stairs at  daybreak,  and  making  such  a  noise  ?  You  woke  me 
so  completely  that  I  could  not  get  to  sleep  again.  You  must 
be  very  quiet,  very  good,  and  learn  to  play  without  making  a 
sound.     Your  cousin  does  not  like  noise?  " 

"And  you  must  take  care  about  your  feet,"  said  Rogron. 
"You  went  into  the  summer-house  with  muddy  shoes,  and 
left  your  footsteps  printed  on  the  floor.  Your  cousin  likes 
everything  to  be  clean.  A  great  girl  like  you  ought  to  be 
cleanly.  Were  you  not  taught  to  be  clean  in  Brittany?  To 
be  sure,  when  I  went  there  to  buy  flax  it  was  dreadful  to  see 
what  savages  they  were  !  She  has  a  fine  appetite  at  any  rate," 
said  Rogron,  turning  to  his  sister;  "you  might  think  she 
had  not  seen  food  these  three  days." 

And  so,  from  the  very  first,  Pierrette  felt  hurt  by  her 
cousins'  remarks,  hurt  without  knowing  why.  Her  frank  and 
upright  nature,  hitherto  left  to  itself,  had  never  been  used  to 
reflect ;  incapable,  therefore,  of  understanding  wherein  her 
cousins  were  wrong,  she  was  doomed  to  tardy  enlightenment 
through  suffering. 

After  breakfast,  the  couple,  delighted  by  Pierrette's  aston- 
ishment, and  eager  to  enjoy  it,  showed  her  their  fine  drawing- 
room,  to  teach  her  to  respect  its  splendor.  Unmarried  people, 
as  a  result  of  their  isolation,  and  prompted  by  the  craving  for 
something  to  interest  them,  are  led  to  supply  the  place  of 


PIERRETTE.  59 

natural  affections  by  artificial  affections — the  love  of  dogs, 
cats,  or  canary  birds,  or  their  servant  or  their  spiritual 
director.  Thus  Rogron  and  Sylvie  had  an  immoderate  affec- 
tion for  the  house  and  furniture  that  had  cost  them  so  much. 
Sylvie  had  taken  to  helping  Adele  every  morning,  being  of 
opinion  that  the  woman  did  not  know  how  to  wipe  furniture, 
to  brush  it,  and  make  it  look  like  new.  This  cleaning  was 
soon  her  constant  occupation.  Thus,  far  from  diminishing 
in  value,  the  furniture  was  improved.  Then  the  problem  was 
to  use  it  without  wearing  it  out,  without  staining  it,  without 
scratching  the  wood  or  chilling  the  polish.  This  idea  ere 
long  became  an  old  maid's  monomania.  Sylvie  kept  in  a 
closet  woolen  rags,  wax,  varnish,  and  brushes;  she  learned 
to  use  them  as  skillfully  as  a  polisher  ;  she  had  feather  brooms 
and  dusters,  and  she  could  rub  without  fear  of  hurting  herself, 
she  was  so  strong !  Her  clear,  blue  eye,  as  cold  and  hard  as 
steel,  constantly  peered  under  the  furniture,  and  you  were 
more  likely  to  find  a  tender  chord  in  her  heart  than  a  speck 
of  flue  under  a  chair. 

After  what  had  passed  at  Madame  Tiphaine's,  Sylvie  could 
not  possibly  shirk  the  outlay  of  three  hundred  francs.  Dur- 
ing the  first  week  Sylvie  was  wholly  occupied,  and  Pierrette 
constantly  amused,  by  the  frocks  to  be  ordered  and  tried  on, 
the  shifts  and  petticoats  to  be  cut  out  and  made  by  needle- 
women working  by  the  day,  Pierrette  did  not  know  how  to 
sew. 

"  She  has  been  nicely  brought  up  !  "  cried  Rogron.  **  Do 
you  know  nothing,  child?" 

Pierrette,  who  only  knew  how  to  love,  answered  but  by  a 
pretty  childish  shrug. 

"What  did  you  do  all  daylong  in  Brittany?"  asked  her 
cousin  Rogron, 

"I  played,"  she  replied  guilelessly.  "  Everybody  played 
with  me.  Grandmamma  and  grandpapa — and  everybody  told 
me  stories.     Oh  !  they  were  very  fond  of  me." 


60  THE   CELIBATES. 

"Indeed!"  replied  Rogron,  "and  so  you  lived  like  a 
lady." 

Pierrette  did  not  understand  this  tradesman's  wit.  She 
opened  her  eyes  wide. 

"  She  is  as  stupid  as  a  wooden  stool,"  said  Sylvie  to  Made- 
moiselle Borain,  the  best  workwoman  in  Provins. 

"  So  young  !  "  said  the  needlewoman,  looking  at  Pierrette, 
whose  delicate  little  face  looked  up  at  her  with  a  knowing 
expression. 

Pierrette  liked  the  workwomen  better  than  her  cousins ; 
she  put  on  pretty  airs  for  them,  watched  them  sewing,  said 
quaint  things — the  flowers  of  childhood,  such  as  Rogron  and 
Sylvie  had  already  silenced  by  fear,  for  they  liked  lo  impress 
all  dependents  with  a  wholesome  alarm.  The  sewing-women 
were  charmed  with  Pierrette.  The  outfit,  however,  was  not 
achieved  without  some  terrible  interjections. 

"That  child  will  cost  us  the  eyes  in  our  heads!"  said 
Sylvie  to  Rogron. 

"  Hold  yourself  up,  child,  do.  The  deuce  is  in  it !  the 
clothes  are  for  you,  not  for  me,"  said  she  to  Pierrette,  when 
she  was  being  measured  or  fitted. 

"  Come,  let  Mademoiselle  Borain  do  her  work  ;  you  won't 
pay  her  day's  wages  !  "  she  exclaimed,  seeing  the  child  ask 
the  head  needlewoman  to  do  something  for  her. 

"  Mademoiselle,"  asked  Mademoiselle  Borain,  "  must  this 
seam  be  back-stitched  ?  " 

"Yes;  make  everything  strongly;  I  do  not  want  to  have 
such  a  piece  of  work  again  in  a  hurry." 

But  it  was  the  same  with  the  little  cousin  as  with  the  house. 
Pierrette  was  to  be  as  well  dressed  as  Madame  Garceland's 
little  girl.  She  had  fashionable  little  boots  of  bronze  kid, 
like  the  little  Tiphaine  girl.  She  had  very  fine  cotton  stock- 
ings, stays  by  the  best  maker,  a  frock  of  blue  reps,  a  pretty 
cape  lined  with  white  silk,  all  in  rivalry  with  young  Madame 
Julliard's  little  girl.     And  the  underclothes  were  as  good  as 


PIERRETTE.  61 

the  outside  show,  Sylvie  was  so  much  afraid  of  the  keen  and 
scrutinizing  eye  of  the  mothers  of  children.  Pierrette  had 
pretty  shifts  of  fine  calico.  Mademoiselle  Borain  said  that 
madame  the  sous-prefet's  little  girls  wore  cambric  drawers 
with  embroidery  and  frilling — the  latest  thing,  in  short ;  Pier- 
rette had  frilled  drawers.  A  charming  drawn  bonnet  was 
ordered  for  her  of  blue  velvet  lined  with  white  satin,  like  the 
little  Martener  girl's.  Thus  Pierrette  was  the  smartest  little 
person  in  Provins.  On  Sunday,  on  coming  out  from  church, 
all  the  ladies  kissed  her.  Mesdames  Tipbaine,  Garceland, 
Galardon,  Auffray,  Lesourd,  Martener,  Guepin,  and  Julliard 
doted  on  the  sweet  little  Bretonne.  This  excitement  flattered 
old  Sylvie's  vanity,  and  in  her  lavishness  she  thought  less  of 
Pierrette  than  of  gratified  pride. 

However,  Sylvie  was  fated  to  find  offense  in  her  little 
cousin's  success,  and  this  was  how  it  came  about ;  Pierrette 
was  asked  out,  and,  still  to  triumph  over  her  neighbors,  Sylvie 
allowed  her  to  go.  Pierrette  was  called  for  to  play  games  and 
have  dolls'  dinner-parties  with  these  ladies'  children.  Pier- 
rette was  a  much  greater  success  than  the  Rogrons ;  Made- 
moiselle Sylvie  was  aggrieved  that  Pierrette  was  in  demand  at 
other  houses,  but  that  no  one  came  to  see  Pierrette  at  home. 
The  artless  child  made  no  secret  of  her  enjoyment  at  the  houses 
of  the  Tiphaines,  the  Marteners,  the  Galardons,  the  Julliards, 
the  Lesourds,  the  Auffrays,  and  the  Garcelands,  whose  kind- 
ness contrasted  strangely  with  the  vexatiousness  of  her  cousins. 
A  mother  would  have  been  glad  of  her  child's  happiness;  but 
the  Rogrons  had  taken  Pierrette  to  please  themselves,  not  to 
please  her ;  their  feelings,  far  from  being  paternal,  were  tainted 
with  egoism  and  a  sort  of  commercial  interest. 

The  beautiful  outfit,  the  fine  Sunday  clothes,  and  the  every- 
day frocks  began  Pierrette's  misfortunes.  Like  all  children 
free  to  amuse  themselves  and  accustomed  to  follow  the  dictates 
of  fancy,  she  wore  out  her  shoes,  boots,  and  frocks  with  fright- 
ful rapidity,  and,  above  all,  her  frilled  drawers.     A  mother 


62  THE   CELIBATES. 

when  she  scolds  her  child  thinks  of  the  child  only ;  she  is 
only  hard  when  driven  to  extremities,  and  when  the  child  is 
in  the  wrong ;  but  in  this  great  clothes  question,  the  cousins' 
money  was  the  first  consideration ;  that  was  the  real  point, 
and  not  Pierrette.  Children  have  a  dog-like  instinct  for  dis- 
cerning injustice  in  those  who  rule  them ;  they  feel  without 
fail  whether  they  are  tolerated  or  loved.  Innocent  hearts  are 
more  alive  to  shades  than  to  contrasts ;  a  child  that  does  not 
yet  understand  evil  knows  when  you  offend  the  sense  of  beauty 
bestowed  on  it  by  nature.  The  lessons  that  Pierrette  brought 
upon  herself  as  to  the  behavior  of  a  well-bred  young  lady,  as 
to  modesty  and  economy,  were  the  corollary  of  this  main 
idea — "Pierrette  is  ruining  us." 

These  scoldings,  which  had  a  fatal  issue  for  Pierrette,  led 
the  old  couple  back  into  the  familiar  commercial  ruts  from 
which  their  home-life  at  Provins  had  led  them  to  wander,  and 
in  which  their  nature  could  expand  and  blossom.  After  being 
used  to  domineer,  to  make  remarks,  to  give  orders,  to  scold 
their  clerks  sharply,  Rogron  and  his  sister  were  perishing  for 
lack  of  victims.  Small  natures  require  despotism  to  exer- 
cise their  sinews,  as  great  souls  thirst  for  equality  to  give 
play  to  their  heart.  Now  narrow  minds  can  develop  as  well 
through  persecution  as  through  benevolence  ;  they  can  assure 
themselves  of  their  power  by  tyrannizing  cruelly  or  benefi- 
cently over  others  J  they  go  the  way  their  nature  guides  them. 
Add  to  this  the  guidance  of  interest,  and  you  will  have  the 
key  to  most  social  riddles.  Pierrette  now  became  very  neces- 
sary to  her  cousins'  existence.  Since  her  arrival  the  Rogrons 
had  been  absorbed  in  her  outfit,  and  then  attracted  by  the 
novelty  of  companionship.  Every  new  thing,  a  feeling,  or 
even  a  tyranny,  must  form  its  set,  its  creases.  Sylvie  began 
by  calling  Pierrette  "  my  child  ;  "  she  gave  up  "my  child  " 
for  "Pierrette"  unqualified.  Her  reproofs,  at  first  sourly 
gentle,  became  hard  and  sharp.  As  soon  as  they  had  started 
on    this   road,  the  brother  and  sister  made  rapid   progress. 


PIERRETTE.  63 

They  were  no  longer  dull.  It  was  not  a  deliberate  scheme 
of  malice  and  cruelty ;  it  was  the  instinct  of  unreasoning 
tyranny.  They  believed  that  they  were  doing  good  to  Pier- 
rette, as  of  old  to  their  apprentices. 

Pierrette,  whose  sensitiveness  was  genuine,  noble,  and  over- 
strung, the  very  antipodes  of  the  Rogrons'  aridity,  had  a  horror 
of  being  blamed ;  it  struck  her  so  cruelly  that  tears  rose  at 
once  to  her  large,  clear  eyes.  She  had  a  hard  struggle  to  sup- 
press her  engaging  liveliness,  which  charmed  every  one  out  of 
the  house.  She  might  indulge  it  before  the  mothers  of  her 
little  friends;  but  at  her  home,  by  the  end  of  the  first  month, 
she  began  to  sit  silent,  and  Rogron  asked  her  if  she  were  ill. 
At  this  strange  question  she  flew  off  to  the  bottom  of  the 
garden  to  cry  by  the  river,  into  which  her  tears  fell,  as  she 
was  one  day  to  fall  in  the  torrent  of  society. 

One  day,  in  spite  of  her  care,  the  little  girl  tore  her  best 
reps  frock  at  Madame  Tiphaine's  where  she  had  gone  to  play 
one  fine  day.  She  at  once  burst  into  tears,  foreseeing  the 
scolding  that  awaited  her  at  home.  On  being  questioned, 
she  let  fall  a  few  words  about  her  terrible  cousin  Sylvie  in  the 
midst  of  her  tears.  Pretty  Madame  Tiphaine  had  some  stuff" 
to  match,  and  she  herself  put  in  a  new  front  breadth.  Made- 
moiselle Rogron  heard  of  the  trick,  as  she  called  it,  played  on 
her  by  that  limb  of  a  little  girl.  From  that  day  she  would 
never  let  Pierrette  visit  any  of  the  ladies. 

The  new  life  which  Pierrette  was  to  lead  at  Provins  was 
fated  to  fall  into  three  very  distinct  phases.  The  first  lasted 
three  months,  during  which  she  enjoyed  a  kind  of  happiness, 
divided  between  the  old  people's  cold  caresses  and  the  scold- 
ings, which  she  found  scorching.  The  prohibition  that  kept 
her  from  seeing  her  little  friends,  emphasizing  the  necessity 
for  beginning  to  learn  everything  that  a  well-brought-up  girl 
should  know,  put  an  end  to  the  first  phase  of  Pierrette's  life 
at  Provins,  the  only  period  when  she  found  existence  en- 
durable. 


64  THE  CELIBATES. 

The  domestic  changes  produced  at  the  Rogrons'  house  by 
Pierrette's  residence  there  were  studied  by  Vinet  and  the 
colonel  with  the  cunning  of  a  fox  bent  on  getting  into  a  fowl- 
house,  and  uneasy  at  discovering  a  new  creature  on  the  scene. 
They  both  paid  calls  at  long  intervals,  so  as  not  to  scare 
Mademoiselle  Sylvie ;  they  found  various  excuses  for  chatting 
with  Rogron,  and  made  themselves  masters  of  the  situation 
with  an  air  of  reserve  and  dignity  that  the  great  Tartufe 
might  have  admired.  The  colonel  and  the  lawyer  spent  at 
the  Rogrons  the  evening  of  the  very  day  when  Sylvie  had 
refused,  in  very  harsh  terms,  to  let  Pierrette  go  to  Madame 
Tiphaine's.  On  hearing  of  her  refusal,  the  colonel  and  the 
lawyer  looked  at  each  other  as  folks  who  knew  their  Provins. 

"She  positively  tried  to  make  a  fool  of  you?"  said  the 
lawyer.  "  We  warned  Rogron  long  ago  of  what  has  now 
happened.  There  is  no  good  to  be  gotten  out  of  those 
people." 

"  What  can  you  expect  of  the  anti-national  party?"  cried 
the  colonel,  curling  up  his  mustache  and  interrupting  Vinet. 
"If  we  had  tried  to  get  you  away  from  them,  you  might  have 
thought  that  we  had  some  malicious  motive  for  speaking  to 
you  so.  But  why,  mademoiselle,  if  you  are  fond  of  a  little 
game,  should  you  not  play  boston  in  the  evenings  at  home  in 
your  own  house?.  Is  it  impossible  to  find  any  one  in  the 
place  of  such  idiots  as  the  Julliards?  Vinet  and  I  play  bos- 
ton ;  we  will  find  a  fourth.  Vinet  might  introduce  his  wife 
to  you ;  she  is  very  nice,  and  she  is  one  of  the  Chargeboeufs, 
You  will  not  be  like  those  apes  in  the  upper  town ;  you  will 
not  expect  a  good  little  housewife,  who  is  compelled  by  her 
family's  disgraceful  conduct  to  do  all  her  own  housework,  to 
dress  like  a  duchess — and  she  has  the  courage  of  a  lion  and 
the  gentleness  of  a  lamb." 

Sylvie  Rogron  displayed  her  long  yellow  teeth  in  a  smile  at 
the  colonel,  who  endured  the  horrible  phenomenon  very  well, 
and  even  assumed  a  flattering  air. 


PIERRETTE.  65 

"  If  there  are  but  four  of  us,  we  cannot  play  boston  every 
evening,"  replied  she. 

•*  Why,  where  else  have  I  to  go — an  old  soldier  like  me 
who  has  nothing  to  do,  and  lives  on  his  pensions  ?  The  law- 
yer is  free  every  evening.  Besides,  you  will  have  company,  I 
promise  you,"  he  added,  with  a  mysterious  air. 

"You  have  only  to  declare  yourselves  frankly  opposed  to 
the  ministerial  party  in  Provins,  and  hold  your  own  against 
them,"  said  Vinet.  "  You  would  see  how  popular  you  would 
be  in  Provins ;  you  would  have  a  great  many  people  on  your 
side.  You  would  make  the  Tiphaines  furious  by  having  an 
opposition  salon.  Well,  then,  let  us  laugh  at  others,  if  others 
laugh  at  us.     The  *  clique  '  do  not  spare  you,  I  can  tell  you." 

"  What  do  they  say?  "  asked  Sylvie. 

In  country  towns  there  is  always  more  than  one  safety- 
valve  by  which  gossip  finds  a  vent  from  one  set  into  another. 
Vinet  had  heard  all  that  had  been  said  about  the  Rogrons  in 
the  drawing-rooms  from  which  the  haberdashers  had  been 
definitively  banished.  The  supernumerary  judge  Desfon- 
drilles,  the  archaeologist,  was  of  neither  party.  This  man, 
like  some  other  independent  members  of  society,  repeated 
everything  he  heard,  out  of  provincial  habit,  and  Vinet  had 
had  the  benefit  of  his  chit-chat.  The  malicious  lawyer  re- 
peated Madame  Tiphaine's  pleasantries  with  added  venom. 
As  he  revealed  the  practical  jokes  of  which  Sylvie  and 
Rogron  had  been  the  unconscious  victims,  he  stirred  the 
rage  and  aroused  the  revengeful  spirit  of  these  two  arid  souls, 
craving  some  aliment  for  their  mean  passions. 

A  few  days  later  Vinet  brought  his  wife,  a  well-bred  woman, 
shy,  neither  plain  nor  pretty,  very  meek,  and  very  conscious 
of  her  misfortune.  Madame  Vinet  was  fair,  rather  worn  by 
the  cares  of  her  penurious  housekeeping,  and  very  simply 
dressed.  No  woman  could  have  better  pleased  Sylvie. 
Madame  Vinet  put  up  with  Sylvie's  airs,  and  gave  way  to  her 
like  a  woman  accustomed  to  give  way.  On  her  round  fore- 
6 


06  THE   CELIBATES. 

head,  her  rose-pink  cheeks,  in  her  slow,  gentle  eyes,  there 
were  traces  of  those  deep  reflections,  that  clear-sighted  thought- 
fulness,  which  women  who  are  used  to  suffering  bury  under 
perfect  silence.  The  influence  of  the  colonel,  displaying  for 
Sylvie's  behoof  courtieresque  graces  that  seemed  wrung  from 
his  soldierly  roughness,  with  that  of  the  wily  Vinet,  soon 
made  itself  felt  by  Pierrette.  The  child,  the  pretty  squirrel, 
shut  up  in  the  house,  or  going  out  only  with  old  Sylvie,  was 
every  instant  checked  by  a  "  Don't  touch  that,  Pierrette  !  " 
and  by  incessant  sermons  on  holding  herself  up.  Pierrette 
stooped  and  held  her  shoulders  high ;  her  cousin  wanted  her 
to  be  as  straight  as  herself,  and  she  was  like  a  soldier  present- 
ing arms  to  his  colonel ;  she  would  sometimes  give  her  little 
slaps  on  her  back  to  make  her  hold  herself  up.  The  free  and 
light-hearted  child  of  the  Marais  learned  to  measure  her 
movements  and  imitate  an  automaton. 

One  evening,  which  marked  the  beginning  of  the  second 
period,  Pierrette,  whom  the  three  visitors  had  not  seen  in  the 
drawing-room  during  the  evening,  came  to  kiss  her  cousins 
and  curtsey  to  the  company  before  going  to  bed.  Sylvie 
coldly  offered  her  cheek  to  the  pretty  little  thing,  as  if  to  be 
kissed  and  have  done  with  it.  The  action  was  so  cruelly 
significant  that  tears  started  from  Pierrette's  eyes. 

**  Have  you  pricked  yourself,  my  little  Pierrette,"  said  the 
abominable  Vinet. 

**  What  is  the  matter  with  you?  "  asked  Sylvie  severely. 

"  Nothing,"  said  the  poor  child,  going  to  kiss  Rogron. 

"Nothing?"  repeated  Sylvie.  "You  cannot  be  crying 
for  nothing  !  " 

"What  is  it,  my  little  pet?"  asked  Madame  Vinet. 

"My  rich  cousin  Sylvie  does  not  treat  me  so  well  as  my 
poor  grandmother  !  " 

"Your  grandmother  stole  your  money,"  said  Sylvie,  "  and 
your  cousin  will  leave  you  hers." 

The  colonel  and  Vinet  exchanged  covert  glances. 


PIERRETTE.  67 

"I  would  rather  be  robbed  and  loved,"  meekly  replied 
Pierrette  in  return. 

**  Very  well,  you  shall  be  sent  back  to  the  place  you  came 
from." 

"But  what  has  the  dear  child  done?"  asked  Madame 
Vinet. 

Vinet  fixed  his  eye  on  his  wife,  with  that  terrible  cold, 
fixed  stare  that  belongs  to  those  who  rule  despotically.  The 
poor  lonely  woman,  unceasingly  punished  for  not  having  the 
one  thing  required  of  her — namely,  a  fortune — took  up  her 
cards  again. 

"  What  has  she  done  ?  "  cried  Sylvie,  raising  her  head  with 
a  jerk  so  sudden  that  the  yellow  wallflowers  in  her  cap  were 
shaken.  "  She  does  not  know  what  to  do  next  to  annoy  us. 
She  opened  my  watch  to  examine  the  works,  and  touched  the 
wheel,  and  broke  the  mainspring.  Mademoiselle  listens  to 
nothing.  All  day  long  I  am  telling  her  to  take  care  what  she 
is  about,  and  I  might  as  well  talk  to  the  lamp." 

Pierrette,  ashamed  of  being  reprimanded  in  the  presence  of 
strangers,  went  out  of  the  room  very  gently. 

"I  cannot  think  how  to  quell  that  child's  turbulence," 
said  Rogron. 

"Why,  she  is  old  enough  to  go  to  school,"  said  Madame 
Vinet. 

Another  look  from  Vinet  silenced  his  wife,  to  whom  he 
had  been  careful  not  to  confide  his  plans  and  the  colonel's 
with  regard  to  the  bachelor  couple. 

"That  is  what  comes  of  taking  charge  of  other  people's 
children,"  cried  Gouraud.  "  You  might  have  some  of  your 
own  yet,  you  or  your  brother;  why  do  you  not  both  marry?" 

Sylvie  looked  very  sweetly  at  the  colonel ;  for  the  first  time 
in  her  life  she  beheld  a  man  to  whom  the  idea  that  she  might 
marry  did  not  seem  absurd. 

"Madame  Vinet  is  right!"  cried  Rogron,  "that  would 
keep  Pierrette  quiet.     A  master  would  not  cost  much." 


68  THE   CELIBATES. 

The  colonel's  speech  so  entirely  occupied  Sylvie  that  she 
did  not  answer  her  brother. 

"  If  only  you  would  stand  the  money  for  the  opposition 
paper  we  were  talking  about,  you  might  find  a  tutor  for  your 
little  cousin  in  the  responsible  editor.  We  could  get  that 
poor  schoolmaster  who  was  victimized  by  the  encroachments 
of  the  priests.  My  wife  is  right ;  Pierrette  is  a  rough  dia- 
mond that  needs  polishing,"  said  Vinet  to  Rogron. 

"I  fancied  that  you  were  a  baron,"  said  Sylvie  to  the 
colonel,  after  a  long  pause,  while  each  player  seemed  medi- 
tative. 

"Yes.  But  having  won  the  title  in  1814,  after  the  battle 
of  Nangis,  where  my  regiment  did  wonders,  how  could  I  find 
the  money  or  the  assistance  needed  to  get  it  duly  registered  ? 
The  barony,  like  the  rank  of  general,  which  I  won  in  18 15, 
must  wait  for  a  revolution  to  secure  them  to  me." 

"If  you  could  give  a  mortgage  as  your  guarantee  for  the 
money,"  said  Rogron  presently,  "  I  could  do  it." 

"That  could  be  arranged  with  Cournant,"  replied  Vinet. 
"  The  newspaper  would  lead  to  the  colonel's  triumph,  and 
make  your  drawing-room  more  powerful  than  those  of  Ti- 
phaine  and  Co." 

"  How  is  that  ?  "  asked  Sylvie. 

At  this  moment,  while  Madame  Vinet  was  dealing,  and  the 
lawyer  explaining  all  the  importance  that  the  publication  of 
an  independent  paper  for  the  district  of  Provins  must  confer 
on  Rogron,  the  colonel,  and  himself,  Pierrette  was  bathed  in 
tears.  Her  heart  and  brain  were  agreed  ;  she  thought  Sylvie 
far  more  to  blame  than  herself.  The  little  Bretonne  instinc- 
tively perceived  how  unfailing  charity  and  benevolence  should 
be.  She  hated  her  fine  frocks  and  all  that  was  done  for  her. 
She  paid  too  dear  for  these  benefits.  She  cried  with  rage  at 
having  given  her  cousins  a  hold  over  her,  and  determined  to 
behave  in  such  a  way  as  to  reduce  them  to  silence,  poor  child  ! 
Then  she  saw  how  noble  Brigaut  had  been  to  give  her  his 


PIERRETTE.  69 

savings.  She  thought  her  woes  had  reached  a  climax,  not 
knowing  that  at  that  moment  new  misfortunes  were  being 
plotted  in  the  drawing-room. 

A  few  days  later  Pierrette  had  a  writing-master.  She  was 
to  learn  to  read,  write,  and  do  sums.  Pierrette's  education 
involved  the  house  of  Rogron  in  fearful  disaster.  There  was 
ink  on  the  tables,  on  the  furniture,  and  on  her  clothes ;  writ- 
ing-books and  pens  strewn  everywhere,  powder  on  the  uphol- 
stery, books  torn  and  dog's-eared  while  she  was  learning  her 
lessons.  They  already  spoke  to  her— and  in  what  a  way  !— 
of  the  necessity  for  earning  her  living  and  being  a  burden  on 
no  one.  As  she  heard  these  dreadful  warnings,  Pierrette  felt 
a  burning  in  her  throat ;  she  was  choking,  her  heart  beat 
painfully  fast.  She  was  obliged  to  swallow  down  her  tears; 
for  each  one  was  reckoned  with  an  offense  against  her  mag- 
nanimous relations.  Rogron  had  found  the  occupation  that 
suited  him.  He  scolded  Pierrette  as  he  had  formerly  scolded 
his  shopmen ;  he  would  fetch  her  in  from  the  midst  of  her 
play  to  compel  her  to  study  ;  he  heard  her  repeat  her  lessons ; 
he  was  the  poor  child's  fierce  tutor.  Sylvie,  on  her  part, 
thought  it  her  duty  to  teach  Pierrette  the  little  she  knew  of 
womanly  accomplishments. 

Neither  Rogron  nor  his  sister  had  any  gentleness  of  nature. 
These  narrow  souls,  finding  a  real  pleasure  in  bullying  the 
poor  little  thing,  changed  unconsciously  from  mildness  to  the 
greatest  severity.  This  severity  was,  they  said,  the  con- 
sequence of  the  child's  obstinacy ;  she  had  begun  too  late  to 
learn,  and  was  dull  of  comprehension.  Her  teachers  did  not 
understand  the  art  of  giving  lessons  in  a  form  suited  to  the 
pupil's  intelligence,  which  is  what  should  distinguish  private 
from  public  education.  The  fault  lay  far  less  with  Pierrette 
than  with  her  cousins.  It  took  her  an  immensely  long  time 
to  learn  the  beginnings.  For  the  merest  trifle  she  was  called 
stupid  and  silly,  foolish  and  awkward.  Incessantly  ill  used 
by  hard  words,  Pierrette  never  met  any  but  cold  looks  from 


70  THE   CELIBATES. 

the  two  old  people.  She  fell  into  the  stolid  dullness  of  a 
sheep  ;  she  dared  do  nothing  when  she  found  her  actions  mis. 
judged,  misunderstood,  misinterpreted.  In  everything  she 
awaited  Sylvie's  orders  and  the  expression  of  her  cousin's 
will,  keeping  her  thoughts  to  herself  and  shutting  herself  up 
in  passive  obedience.  Her  bright  color  began  to  fade. 
Sometimes  she  complained  of  aches  and  pains.  When  Sylvie 
asked  her  where?  the  poor  child,  who  felt  generally  ailing, 
replied,  "All  over." 

*'  Was  there  ever  such  a  thing  heard  of  as  aching  all  over? 
If  you  were  ill  all  over,  you  would  certainly  be  dead !  "  re- 
torted Sylvie. 

"You  may  have  a  pain  in  your  chest,"  said  Rogron  the 
expositor,  "or  in  your  teeth,  or  your  head,  or  your  feet,  or 
your  stomach,  but  no  one  ever  had  pains  everywhere.  What 
do  you  mean  by  '  all  over  ? '  Pain  all  over  is  pain  nowhere. 
Do  you  know  what  you  are  doing  ?  You  are  talking  for  talk- 
ing's  sake." 

Pierrette  at  last  never  spoke,  finding  that  her  artless  girlish 
remarks,  the  flowers  of  her  opening  mind,  were  met  with 
commonplace  retorts  which  her  good  sense  told  her  were 
ridiculous. 

"  You  are  always  complaining,  and  you  eat  like  a  fasting 
friar  !  "  said  Rogron. 

The  only  person  who  never  distressed  this  sweet  fragile 
flower  was  the  sturdy  servant  Adele.  Adele  always  warmed 
the  little  girl's  bed,  but  in  secret,  since  one  evening  when, 
being  discovered  in  the  act  of  thus  "spoiling"  her  master's 
heiress,  she  was  scolded  by  Sylvie. 

"  Children  must  be  hardened  ;  that  is  the  way  to  give 
them  strong  constitutions.  Have  we  been  any  the  worse  for 
it,  my  brother  and  I?"  said  Sylvie.  "  You  will  make  Pier- 
rette a  peeky  coddle  !  " — une  picheline,  a  word  of  the  Rogron 
vocabulary  used  by  them  to  designate  weakly  and  complaining 
persons. 


PIERRETTE.  71 

The  little  angel's  caressing  expressions  were  regarded  as 
mere  acting.  The  roses  of  affection  that  budded  so  fresh 
and  lovely  in  this  young  soul,  and  longed  to  open  to  the  day, 
were  mercilessly  crushed.  Pierrette  felt  the  hardest  blows  on 
the  tenderest  spots  of  her  heart.  If  she  tried  to  soften  these 
two  savage  natures  by  her  pretty  ways,  she  was  accused  of  ex- 
pressing her  tenderness  out  of  self-interest.  *'  Tell  me  plainly 
what  you  want,"  Rogron  would  exclaim  roughly;  "you  are 
certainly  not  coaxing  me  for  nothing." 

Neither  the  sister  nor  the  brother  recognized  affection,  and 
Pierrette  was  all  affection. 

Colonel  Gouraud,  anxious  to  please  Mademoiselle  Rogron, 
declared  her  right  in  all  that  concerned  Pierrette.  Vinet  no 
less  supported  the  old  cousins  in  their  abuse  of  Pierrette  ;  he 
ascribed  all  the  reported  misdeeds  of  this  angel  to  the  obsti- 
nacy of  the  Breton  character,  and  said  that  no  power,  no 
strength  of  will,  could  ever  conquer  it.  Rogron  and  his 
sister  were  flattered  with  the  utmost  skill  by  these  two  cour- 
tiers, who  had  at  last  succeeded  in  extracting  from  Rogron 
the  surety  money  for  the  newspaper,  the  Provins  Courrier, 
and  from  Sylvie  five  thousand  francs,  as  a  shareholder.  The 
colonel  and  Vinet  now  took  the  field.  They  disposed  of  a 
hundred  shares  at  five  hundred  francs  each  to  the  electors  who 
held  state  securities,  and  whom  the  Liberal  journals  filled 
with  alarms,  to  farmers,  and  to  persons  who  were  called  in- 
dependent. They  even  extended  their  ramifications  over  the 
whole  department,  and  beyond  it,  to  some  adjacent  townships. 
Each  shareholder  subscribed  for  the  paper,  of  course.  Then 
the  legal  and  other  advertisements  were  divided  between  the 
Ruche  and  the  Courrier.  The  first  number  contained  a 
grandiloquent  column  in  praise  of  Rogron,  who  was  repre- 
sented as  the  Lafiitte  of  Provins. 

As  soon  as  the  public  mind  found  a  leader,  it  became  easy 
to  perceive  that  the  coming  elections  would  be  hotly  con- 
tested.    Madame  Tiphaine  was  in  despair. 


72  THE   CELIBATES. 

"  Unfortunately,"  said  she,  as  she  read  an  article  attacking 
her  and  Monsieur  Julliard,  "  unfortunately,  I  forgot  that  there 
is  always  a  rogue  not  very  far  away  from  a  dupe,  and  that 
folly  always  attracts  a  clever  man  of  the  fox  species." 

As  soon  as  the  newspaper  was  to  be  seen  for  twenty  leagues 
round,  Vinet  had  a  new  coat  and  boots,  and  a  decent  waist- 
coat and  trousers.  He  displayed  the  famous  white  hat  affected 
by  Liberals,  and  showed  his  collar  and  cuffs.  His  wife  en- 
gaged a  servant,  and  appeared  dressed  as  became  the  wife  of 
an  influential  man  ;  she  wore  pretty  caps. 

Vinet,  out  of  self-interest,  was  grateful.  He  and  his  friend, 
Cournant,  notary  to  the  Liberal  side,  and  Auffray's  opponent, 
became  the  Rogrons'  advisers,  and  did  them  two  great  ser- 
vices. The  leases  granted  by  old  Rogron,  their  father,  in 
1815,  under  unfortunate  circumstances,  were  about  to  fall  in. 
Horticulture  and  market  gardening  had  lately  developed 
enormously  in  the  Provins  district.  The  pleader  and  the 
notary  made  it  their  business  to  effect  an  increase  of  fourteen 
hundred  francs  a  year  on  granting  the  new  leases.  Vinet 
also  won  for  them  two  lawsuits  against  two  villages,  relating 
to  plantations  of  trees,  in  which  the  loss  of  five  hundred 
poplars  was  involved.  The  money  for  the  poplars,  with  the 
Rogrons'  savings,  which  for  the  last  three  years  had  amounted 
to  six  thousand  francs  deposited  at  compound  interest,  was 
skillfully  laid  out  in  the  purchase  of  several  plots  of  land. 
Finally,  Vinet  proposed  and  carried  out  the  eviction  of  certain 
peasant  proprietors,  to  whom  Rogron  the  elder  had  loaned 
money,  and  who  had  killed  themselves  with  cultivating  and 
manuring  their  land  to  enable  them  to  repay  it,  but  in  vain. 

Thus  the  damage  done  to  the  Rogrons'  capital  by  the 
reconstruction  of  their  house  was  to  a  great  extent  remedied. 
Their  estates  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  town, 
chosen  by  their  father  as  innkeepers  know  how  to  choose,  cut 
up  into  small  holdings  of  which  the  largest  was  less  than  five 
acres,  and  let  to  perfectly  solvent  tenants,  themselves  owners 


PIERRETTE.  73 

of  some  plots  of  land  mortgaged  to  secure  the  farm  rents, 
brought  in  at  Martinmas,  in  November,  1826,  five  thousand 
francs.  The  taxes  were  paid  by  the  tenants,  and  there  were 
no  buildings  to  repair  or  insure  against  fire. 

The  brother  and  sister  each  possessed  four  thousand  six 
hundred  francs  in  the  five  per  cents;  and,  as  their  selling 
value  was  above  par,  Vinet  exhorted  them  to  invest  the  money 
in  laud,  promising  them — seconded  by  the  notary — that  they 
should  not  lose  a  farthing  of  interest  by  the  transfer. 

By  the  end  of  this  second  period  life  was  so  intolerable 
to  Pierrette — the  indifference  of  all  about  her,  the  senseless 
fault-finding  and  lack  of  affection  in  her  cousins  became  so 
virulent,  she  felt  so  plainly  the  cold  chill  of  the  tomb  blowing 
upon  her,  that  she  entertained  the  daring  project  of  going 
away,  on  foot,  with  no  money,  to  Brittany  to  rejoin  her  grand- 
father and  grandmother.  Two  events  prevented  this :  Old 
Lorrain  died,  and  Rogron  was  appointed  Pierrette's  guardian 
by  a  family  council  held  at  Provins.  If  her  old  grandmother 
had  died  first,  it  is  probable  that  Rogron,  advised  by  Vinet, 
would  have  called  upon  the  grandfather  to  repay  the  child's 
eight  thousand  francs,  and  have  reduced  him  to  beggary. 

"  Why,  you  may  inherit  Pierrette's  money,"  said  Vinet 
with  a  hideous  smile.  "You  never  can  tell  who  will  live  or 
who  will  die," 

Enlightened  by  this  speech,  Rogron  left  the  widow  Lorrain 
no  peace  as  Pierrette's  debtor  till  he  had  made  her  secure  to 
the  little  girl  the  capital  of  the  eight  thousand  francs  by  a 
deed  of  gift,  of  which  he  paid  the  cost. 

Pierrette  was  strangely  affected  by  this  loss.  Just  as  the 
blow  fell  on  her  she  was  to  be  prepared  for  her  first  com- 
munion, the  other  event  which  by  its  obligations  tied  her  to 
Provins.  This  necessary  and  simple  ceremony  was  to  bring 
about  great  changes  for  the  Rogrons.  Sylvie  learned  that  the 
cure,  Monsieur  Peroux,  was  instructing  the  little  Julliards, 


74  THE  CELIBATES. 

the  Lesourds,  Garcelands,  and  others.  She  made  it  therefore 
a  point  of  honor  to  put  Pierrette  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Abbe  Peroux's  superior,  Monsieur  Habert,  a  man  who  was 
said  to  belong  to  the  Jesuit  congregation — very  zealous  for 
the  interests  of  the  church,  much  dreaded  in  Provins,  and 
hiding  immense  ambition  under  the  strictest  severity  of  prin- 
ciple. This  priest's  sister,  an  unmarried  woman  of  about 
thirty,  had  a  school  for  girls  in  the  town.  The  brother  and 
sister  were  much  alike ;  both  lean,  sallow,  atrabilious,  with 
black  hair. 

Pierrette,  a  Bretonne  nurtured  in  the  practice  and  poetry 
of  the  Catholic  faith,  opened  her  heart  and  ears  to  the  teach- 
ing of  this  imposing  priest.  Suffering  predisposes  the  mind 
to  devoutness  ;  and  most  young  girls,  prompted  by  instinctive 
tenderness,  lean  towards  mysticism,  the  obscurer  side  of 
religion.  So  the  priest  sowed  the  seed  of  the  gospel  and  the 
dogmas  of  the  church  in  good  ground.  He  completely 
changed  Pierrette's  frame  of  mind.  Pierrette  loved  Jesus 
Christ,  as  presented  to  girls  in  the  sacrament,  as  a  celestial 
bridegroom ;  her  moral  and  physical  sufferings  now  had  their 
meaning ;  she  was  taught  to  see  the  hand  of  God  in  every- 
thing. Her  soul,  so  cruelly  stricken  in  this  house,  while  she 
could  not  accuse  her  cousins,  took  refuge  in  the  sphere 
whither  fly  all  who  are  wretched,  borne  on  the  wings  of  the 
three  Christian  virtues.  She  gave  up  the  idea  of  flight. 
Sylvie,  amazed  at  the  alteration  produced  in  Pierrette  by 
Monsieur  Habert,  became  curious.  And  so,  while  preparing 
the  child  for  her  first  communion.  Monsieur  Habert  won  to 
God  the  hitherto  wandering  soul  of  Mademoiselle  Sylvie. 
Sylvie  became  a  bigot. 

Denis  Rogron,  over  whom  the  supposed  Jesuit  could  get  no 
hold — for  at  that  time  the  spirit  of  his  late  lamented  majesty, 
Constitution  the  First,  was  in  some  simpletons  supreme  above 
that  of  the  church — Denis  remained  faithful  to  Colonel 
Gouraud,  Vinet,  and  Liberalism. 


PIERRETTE.  76 

Mademoiselle  Rogron,  of  course,  made  acquaintance  with 
Mademoiselle  Habert,  with  whom  she  was  in  perfect  sympathy. 
The  two  old  maids  loved  each  other  like  two  loving  sisters. 
Mademoiselle  Habert  proposed  to  take  Pierrette  under  her 
care,  and  spare  Sylvie  the  trouble  and  vexations  of  educating 
a  child;  but  the  brother  and  sister  replied  that  Pierrette's 
absence  would  make  the  house  feel  too  empty.  The  Rogrons' 
attachment  to  their  little  cousin  seemed  from  this  expression 
to  be  quite  excessive. 

On  seeing  Mademoiselle  Habert  in  possession,  Colonel 
Gouraud  and  Vinet  ascribed  to  the  ambitious  priest,  on  his 
sister's  behalf,  the  matrimonial  scheme  imagined  by  the 
colonel. 

*'  Your  sister  wants  to  see  you  married,"  said  the  lawyer  to 
the  ex-haberdasher. 

"  And  to  whom  ?  "  said  Rogron. 

**  To  that  old  sibyl  of  a  schoolmistress,"  cried  the  colonel, 
curling  his  mustache. 

"She  has  said  nothing  to  me  about  it,"  said  Rogron 
blankly. 

A  woman  so  determined  as  Sylvie  was  sure  to  make  great 
progress  in  the  ways  of  salvation.  The  priest's  influence 
soon  grew  in  the  house,  supported  as  it  was  by  Sylvie,  who 
managed  her  brother.  The  two  Liberals,  very  legitimately 
alarmed,  understood  that  if  the  priest  had  determined  to  get 
Rogron  for  his  sister's  husband — a  far  more  suitable  match 
than  that  of  Sylvie  and  the  colonel — he  would  urge  Sylvie  to 
the  excessive  practice  of  religion,  and  make  Pierrette  go  into 
a  convent.  They  would  thus  lose  the  reward  of  eighteen 
months  of  efforts,  meanness,  and  flattery.  They  took  a  ter- 
ribly dumb  hatred  of  the  priest  and  his  sister,  and  yet,  if  they 
were  to  keep  up  with  them  step  for  step,  they  felt  the  neces- 
sity of  remaining  on  good  terms  with  them. 

Monsieur  and  Mademoiselle  Habert,  who  played  both  whist 
and  boston,  came   every  evening.     Their  assiduity  excited 


7«  THE   CELIBATES. 

that  of  the  others.  The  lawyer  and  the  soldier  felt  that  they 
were  pitted  against  adversaries  stronger  than  themselves,  a 
preconception  which  Monsieur  Habert  and  his  sister  fully 
shared.  This  situation  was  in  itself  a  battle.  Just  as  the 
colonel  gave  to  Sylvie  a  foretaste  of  the  unhoped-for  joys  of 
an  offer  of  marriage — for  she  had  brought  herself  to  regard 
Gouraud  as  a  man  worthy  of  her — so  Mademoiselle  Habert 
wrapped  the  retired  haberdasher  in  the  cotton  wool  of  her 
attentions,  her  speeches,  and  her  looks.  Neither  party  could 
say  to  itself  the  great  word  of  great  politicians,  **  Divide  the 
spoil ! ' '  each  insisted  on  the  whole  prize. 

Besides,  the  two  wily  foxes  of  the  Opposition  at  Provins — 
an  opposition  that  was  growing  in  strength — were  rash  enough 
to  believe  themselves  stronger  than  the  priesthood  ;  they  were 
the  first  to  fire.  Vinet,  whose  gratitude  was  stirred  up  by 
the  claw-fingers  of  self-interest,  went  to  fetch  Mademoiselle 
de  Chargeboeuf  and  her  mother.  The  two  women,  who  had 
about  two  thousand  francs  a  year,  lived  very  narrowly  at 
Troyes.  Mademoiselle  Bathilde  de  Chargeboeuf  was  one  of 
those  splendid  women  who  believe  in  marrying  for  love,  and 
change  their  minds  towards  their  five-and-twentieth  year  on 
finding  themselves  still  unwedded.  Vinet  succeeded  in  per- 
suading Madame  de  Chargeboeuf  to  combine  her  two  thou- 
sand francs  with  the  thousand  crowns  he  was  making  now  that 
the  newspaper  was  started,  and  to  come  and  live  with  him  at 
Provins,  where  Bathilde,  he  said,  might  marry  a  simpleton 
named  Rogron,  and,  so  clever  as  she  was,  rival  handsome 
Madame  Tiphaine. 

The  reinforcement  of  Vinet's  household  and  ideas  by  the 
arrival  of  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  de  Chargeboeuf  gave 
the  utmost  cohesion  to  the  Liberal  party.  This  coalition 
brought  consternation  to  the  aristocracy  of  Provins  and  the 
Tiphaine  party.  Madame  de  Breautey,  in  dismay  at  seeing 
two  women  of  family  so  misled,  begged  them  to  come  to  see 
her.     She  bewailed  the  blunders  committed  by  the  Royalists, 


PIERRETTE.  77 

and  was  furious  with  those  of  Troyes  on  learning  the  poverty 
of  this  mother  and  daughter. 

**  What !  was  there  no  old  country  gentleman  who  would 
marry  that  dear  girl,  born  to  rule  a  chateau  ? ' '  cried  she. 
"  They  have  let  her  run  to  seed,  and  now  she  will  throw  her- 
self at  the  head  of  a  Rogron  I  " 

She  hunted  the  department  through,  and  failed  to  find  one 
gentleman  who  would  marry  a  girl  whose  mother  had  but  two 
thousand  francs  a  year.  Then  the  **  clique  "  of  the  Tiphaines 
and  the  sous-prefet  also  set  to  work,  but  too  late,  to  discover 
such  a  man.  Madame  de  Breautey  inveighed  loudly  against 
the  selfishness  that  was  eating  up  France,  the  result  of  materi- 
alism and  of  the  power  conferred  on  money  by  the  laws ;  the 
nobility  was  nothing  in  these  days !  Beauty  was  nothing ! 
Rogrons  and  Vinets  were  defying  the  King  of  France  ! 

Bathilde  had  the  indisputable  advantage  over  her  rival  not 
merely  of  beauty,  but  of  dress.  She  was  dazzlingly  fair. 
At  five-and-twenty  her  fully-developed  shoulders  and  splendid 
rnodeling  were  exquisitely  full.  The  roundness  of  her  throat, 
the  slenderness  of  her  articulations,  the  splendor  of  her  fine 
fair  hair,  the  charm  of  her  smile,  the  elegant  shape  of  her 
head,  the  dignity  and  odtline  of  her  face,  her  fine  eyes  under 
a  well-moulded  brow,  her  calm  and  well-bred  movements,  and 
her  still  girlish  figure,  all  were  in  harmony.  She  had  a  fine 
hand  and  a  narrow  foot.  Her  robust  health  gave  her, 
perhaps,  the  look  of  a  handsome  inn-servant;  "but  that 
should  be  no  fault  in  a  Rogron's  eyes,"  said  pretty  Madame 
Tiphaine, 

The  first  time  Mademoiselle  de  Chargebceuf  was  seen  she 
was  dressed  simply  enough.  Her  dress  of  brown  merino, 
edged  with  green  embroidery,  was  cut  low ;  but  a  kerchief  of 
tulle,  neatly  drawn  down  by  invisible  strings,  covered  her 
shoulders,  back,  and  bust,  a  little  open  at  the  throat,  though 
fastened  by  a  brooch  and  chain.  Under  this  fine  network 
Bathilde's  beauty  was  even  more  attractive,  more  suggestive. 


78  THE   CELIBATES. 

She  took  off  her  velvet  bonnet  and  her  shawl  on  entering, 
and  showed  pretty  ears  with  gold  eardrops.  She  had  a  little 
cross  and  heart  on  black  velvet  round  her  neck,  which  con- 
trasted with  its  whiteness  like  the  black  that  fantastic  nature 
sets  round  the  tail  of  a  white  Angora  cat.  She  was  expert  in 
all  the  arts  of  girls  on  their  promotion  :  twisting  her  fingers 
to  arrange  curls  that  are  not  out  of  place,  displaying  her  wrists 
by  begging  Rogron  to  button  her  cuff,  which  the  hapless  man, 
quite  dazzled,  bluntly  refused  to  do,  hiding  his  agitation  under 
assumed  indifference.  The  bashfulness  of  the  only  passion 
our  haberdasher  was  ever  to  know  in  his  life  always  gave  it 
the  demeanor  of  hatred.  Sylvie,  as  well  as  Celeste  Habert, 
misunderstood  it ;  not  so  the  lawyer,  the  superior  man  of  this 
company  of  simpletons,  whose  only  enemy  was  the  priest,  for 
the  colonel  had  long  been  his  ally. 

Gouraud,  on  his  part,  thenceforth  behaved  to  Sylvie  as 
Bathilde  did  to  Rogron.  He  appeared  in  clean  linen  every 
evening ;  he  wore  velvet  collars,  which  gave  effect  to  his  mar- 
tial countenance,  set  off  by  the  corners  of  his  white  shirt 
collars ;  he  adopted  white  drill  waistcoats,  and  had  a  new  frock- 
coat  made  of  blue  cloth,  on  which  his  red  rosette  was  con- 
spicuous, and  all  under  pretense  of  doing  honor  to  the  fair 
Bathilde.  He  never  smoked  after  two  o'clock.  His  grizzled 
hair  was  brushed  down  in  a  wave  over  his  ochre-colored  skull. 
In  short,  he  assumed  the  appearance  and  attitude  of  a  party 
chief,  of  a  man  who  was  prepared  to  rout  the  enemies  of 
France — in  one  word,  the  Bourbons — with  tuck  of  dram. 

The  satanical  pleader  and  the  cunning  colonel  played  a  still 
more  cruel  trick  on  Monsieur  and  Mademoiselle  Habert  than 
that  of  introducing  the  beautiful  Mademoiselle  de  Charge- 
boeuf,  who  was  pronounced  by  the  Liberal  party  and  by  the 
Breauteys  to  be  ten  times  handsomer  than  the  beautiful 
Madame  Tiphaine.  These  two  great  country-town  politi- 
cians had  it  rumored  from  one  to  another  that  Monsieur 
Habert  had  agreed  with  them  on  all  points.     Provins  before 


PIERRETTE.  79 

long  spoke  of  him  as  a  "  Liberal  priest."  Called  up  before 
the  bishop,  Monsieur  Habert  was  obliged  to  give  up  his  even- 
ings with  the  Rogrons,  but  his  sister  still  went  there.  Thence- 
forth the  Rogron  drawing-room  was  a  fact  and  a  power. 

And  so,  by  the  middle  of  that  year,  political  intrigues  were 
not  less  eager  than  matrimonial  intrigues  in  the  Rogrons* 
rooms.  While  covert  interests,  buried  out  of  sight,  were 
fighting  wildly  for  the  upper  hand,  the  public  struggle  won 
disastrous  notoriety.  Everybody  knows  that  the  Villele  min- 
istry was  overthrown  by  the  elections  of  1826.  In  the  Pro- 
vins  constituency,  Vinet,  the  Liberal  candidate — for  whom 
Monsieur  Cournant  had  obtained  his  qualification  by  the  pur- 
chase of  some  land  of  which  the  price  remained  unpaid — 
came  very  near  beating  Monsieur  Tiphaine.  The  president 
had  a  majority  of  only  two, 

Mesdames  Vinet  and  de  Chargeboeuf,  Vinet  and  the  colonel 
were  sometimes  joined  by  Monsieur  Cournant  and  his  wife ; 
then  by  Neraud  the  doctor,  a  man  whose  youth  had  been  very 
"stormy,"  but  who  now  took  serious  views  of  life;  he  had 
devoted  himself  to  science,  it  was  said,  and,  if  the  Liberals 
were  to  be  believed,  was  a  far  cleverer  man  than  Monsieur 
Martener.  To  the  Rogrons  their  triumph  was  as  inexplicable 
as  their  ostracism  had  been. 

The  handsome  Bathilde  de  Chargeboeuf,  to  whom  Vinet 
spoke  of  Pierrette  as  an  enemy,  was  horribly  disdainful  to  the 
child.  The  humiliation  of  this  poor  victim  was  necessary  to 
the  interest  of  all.  Madame  Vinet  could  do  nothing  for  the 
little  girl  who  was  being  brayed  in  the  mortar  of  the  pitiless 
egotisms  which  the  lady  at  last  understood.  But  for  her 
husband's  imperative  desire  she  would  never  have  come  to 
the  Rogrons ;  it  grieved  her  too  much  to  see  their  ill-usage  of 
the  pretty  little  thing  who  clung  to  her,  understanding  her 
secret  good-will,  and  begged  her  to  teach  her  such  or  such  a 
stitch  or  embroidery  pattern.  Pierrette  had  shown  that  when 
she  was  thus  treated  she  understood  and  succeeded  to  admira- 


80  THE   CELIBATES, 

tion.  But  Madame  Vinet  was  no  longer  of  any  use,  so  she 
came  no  more. 

Sylvie,  who  still  cherished  the  notion  of  marriage,  now 
regarded  Pierrette  as  an  obstacle.  Pierrette  was  nearly  four- 
teen ;  her  sickly  fairness,  a  symptom  that  was  quite  over- 
looked by  the  ignorant  old  maid,  made  her  lovely.  Then 
Sylvie  had  the  bright  idea  of  indemnifying  herself  for  the 
expenses  caused  by  Pierrette  by  making  a  servant  of  her. 
Vinet,  as  representing  the  interests  of  the  Chargeboeufs, 
Mademoiselle  Habert,  Gouraud,  all  the  influential  visitors, 
advised  Sylvie  by  all  means  to  dismiss  Adele.  Could  not 
Pierrette  cook  and  keep  the  house  in  order  ?  When  there 
was  too  much  to  be  done,  she  need  only  engage  the  colonel's 
housekeeper,  a  very  accomplished  person,  and  one  of  the  best 
cooks  in  Provins.  Pierrette  ought  to  learn  to  cook  and  to 
polish  the  floors,  said  the  baleful  lawyer,  to  sweep,  keep  the 
house  neat,  go  to  market,  and  know  the  price  of  things.  The 
poor  little  girl,  whose  unselfishness  was  as  great  as  her  gener- 
osity, offered  it  herself,  glad  to  pay  thus  for  the  hard  bread 
she  ate  under  that  roof. 

Adele  went.  Thus  Pierrette  lost  the  only  person  who 
might  perhaps  have  protected  her.  Strong  as  she  was,  from 
that  hour  she  was  crushed  body  and  soul.  The  old  people 
had  less  mercy  on  her  than  on  a  servant ;  she  was  their  prop- 
erty !  She  was  scolded  for  mere  nothings,  for  a  little  dust 
left  on  the  corner  of  a  chimney-shelf  or  a  glass  shade.  These 
objects  of  luxury  that  she  had  so  much  admired  became  odious 
to  her.  In  spite  of  her  anxiety  to  do  right,  her  relentless 
cousin  Sylvie  always  found  some  fault  with  everything  she 
did.  In  two  years  Pierrette  never  heard  a  word  of  praise  or 
of  affection.  Her  whole  happiness  consisted  in  not  being 
scolded.  She  submitted  with  angelic  patience  to  the  dark 
moods  of  these  two  unmarried  beings,  to  whom  the  gentler 
feelings  were  unknown,  and  who  made  her  suffer  every  day 
for  her  dependency.     This  life  in  which  the  young  girl  was 


PIERRETTE.  81 

gripped,  as  it  were,  between  the  two  haberdashers  as  in  the 
jaws  of  a  vise,  increased  her  malady.  She  had  such  violent 
fits  of  inexplicable  distress,  such  sudden  bursts  of  secret  grief, 
that  her  physical  development  was  irremediably  checked. 
And  thus,  by  slow  degrees,  through  terrible  though  concealed 
sufferings,  Pierrette  had  come  to  the  state  in  which  the  friend 
of  her  childhood  had  seen  her  as  he  stood  on  the  little  square 
and  greeted  her  with  his  Breton  ballad. 

Before  entering  on  the  story  of  the  domestic  drama  in  the 
Rogrons'  house,  to  which  Brigaut's  arrival  gave  rise,  it  will  be 
necessary,  to  avoid  digressions,  to  account  for  the  lad's  set- 
tling at  Provins,  since  he  is  in  some  sort  a  silent  personage 
on  the  stage. 

Brigaut,  as  he  fled,  was  alarmed  not  merely  by  Pierrette's 
signal,  but  also  by  the  change  in  his  little  friend  ;  hardly 
could  he  recognize  her,  but  for  the  voice,  eyes,  and  move- 
ments which  recalled  his  lively  little  playfellow,  at  once  so 
gay  and  so  loving.  When  he  had  gotten  far  away  from  the 
house,  his  legs  quaked  under  him,  his  spine  felt  on  fire  !  He 
had  seen  the  shadow  of  Pierrette,  and  not  Pierrette  herself. 
He  made  his  way  up  to  the  old  town,  thoughtful  and  uneasy, 
till  he  found  a  spot  whence  he  could  see  the  place  and  the 
house  where  Pierrette  lived  ;  he  gazed  at  it  sadly,  lost  in 
thought  as  infinite  as  the  troubles  into  which  we  plunge  with- 
out knowing  where  they  may  end.  Pierrette  was  ill ;  she  was 
unhappy;  she  regretted  Brittany!  What  ailed  her?  All 
these  questions  passed  again  and  again  through  Brigaut's 
mind,  and  racked  his  breast,  revealing  to  him  the  extent  of 
his  affection  for  his  little  adopted  sister. 

It  is  very  rarely  that  a  passion  between  two  children  of  dif- 
ferent sexes  remains  permanent.  The  charming  romance  of 
Paul  and  Virginia  no  more  solves  the  problem  of  this  strange 
moral  fact  than  does  that  of  Brigaut  and  Pierrette.  Modern 
history  offers  the  single  illustrious  exception  of  the  sublime 
6 


82  THE  CELIBATES. 

Marchesa  di  Pescara  and  her  husband,  who,  destined  for  each 
other  by  their  parents  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  adored  each 
other,  and  were  married.  Their  union  gave  to  the  sixteenth 
century  the  spectacle  of  boundless  conjugal  affection,  never 
clouded.  The  Marchesa,  a  widow  at  four-and-thirty,  beauti- 
ful, witty,  universally  beloved,  refused  monarchs,  and  buried 
herself  in  a  convent,  where  she  never  saw,  never  heard,  any 
one  but  nuns. 

Such  perfect  love  as  this  blossomed  suddenly  in  the  heart 
of  the  poor  Breton  artisan.  Pierrette  and  he  had  so  often 
been  each  other's  protectors,  he  had  been  so  happy  in  giving 
her  the  money  for  her  journey,  he  had  almost  died  of  running 
after  the  diligence,  and  Pierrette  had  not  known  it !  The 
memory  of  it  had  often  warmed  him  during  the  chill  hours  of 
his  toilsome  life  these  three  years  past.  He  had  improved 
himself  for  Pierrette  ;  he  had  learned  his  craft  for  Pierrette  ; 
he  had  come  to  Paris  for  Pierrette,  intending  to  make  a  for- 
tune for  her.  After  being  there  a  fortnight,  he  could  no 
longer  control  his  longing  to  see  her ;  he  had  walked  from 
Saturday  evening  till  Monday  morning.  He  had  intended  to 
return  to  Paris,  but  the  pathetic  appearance  of  his  little  friend 
held  him  fast  to  Provins.  A  wonderful  magnetism — still  dis- 
puted, it  is  true,  in  spite  of  so  many  instances — acted  on  him 
without  his  knowing  it ;  and  tears  filled  his  eyes,  while  they 
also  dimmed  Pierrette's  sight.  If  to  her  he  was  Brittany  and 
all  her  happy  childhood,  to  him  Pierrette  was  life  !  At  six- 
teen Brigaut  had  not  yet  learned  to  draw  or  give  the  section 
of  a  moulding ;  there  were  many  things  he  did  not  know  ; 
but  at  piecework  he  had  earned  from  four  to  five  francs  a  day. 
So  he  could  live  at  Provins ;  he  would  be  within  reach  of 
Pierrette ;  he  would  finish  learning  his  business  by  working 
under  the  best  cabinetmaker  in  the  town,  and  watch  over  the 
little  girl. 

Brigaut  made  up  his  mind  at  once.  He  flew  back  to  Paris, 
settled  his  accounts,  collected  his  pass,  his  luggage,  and  his 


PIERRETTE.  83 

tools.  Three  days  later  he  was  working  for  Monsieur  Frap- 
pier,  the  best  carpenter  in  Provins.  Energetic  workmen, 
steady,  and  averse  to  turbulency  and  taverns,  are  rare  enoiigli 
to  make  a  master  glad  to  get  a  young  fellow  like  Brigaut. 
To  conclude  his  story  on  that  score,  by  the  end  of  a  fortnight 
he  was  foreman,  lodging  and  boarding  with  Frappier,  who 
taught  him  arithmetic  and  linear  drawing.  The  carpenter 
lived  in  the  High  Street,  about  a  hundred  yards  from  the  little 
oblong  piazza,  at  the  end  of  which  stood  the  Rogrons'  house. 

Brigaut  buried  his  love  in  his  heart,  and  was  not  guilty  of 
the  smallest  indiscretion.  He  got  Madame  Frappier  to  tell 
him  the  history  of  the  Rogrons;  from  her  he  learned  how 
the  old  innkeeper  had  set  to  work  to  get  the  money  left  by 
old  Auffray.  Brigaut  was  fully  informed  as  to  the  character 
of  the  haberdasher  and  his  sister.  One  morning  he  met 
Pierrette  at  market  with  Mademoiselle  Sylvie,  and  shuddered 
to  see  her  with  a  basket  on  her  arm  full  of  provisions.  He 
went  to  see  Pierrette  again  at  church  on  Sunday,  where  the 
girl  appeared  in  all  her  best ;  there,  for  the  first  time,  Brigaut 
understood  that  Pierrette  was  Mademoiselle  Lorrain. 

Pierrette  saw  her  friend,  but  she  made  him  a  mysterious 
signal  to  keep  himself  out  of  sight.  There  was  a  world  of 
meaning  in  this  gesture,  as  in  that  by  which,  a  fortnight  since, 
she  had  bidden  him  vanish.  What  a  fortune  he  would  have 
to  make  in  ten  years  to  enable  him  to  marry  the  companion 
of  his  childhood,  to  whom  the  Rogrons  would  leave  a  house, 
a  hundred  acres  of  land,  and  twelve  thousand  francs  a  year, 
not  to  mention  their  savings  !  The  persevering  Breton  would 
not  tempt  fortune  till  he  had  acquired  the  knowledge  he  still 
lacked.  So  long  as  it  was  theory  alone,  it  was  all  the  same 
whether  he  learned  in  Paris  or  at  Provins,  and  he  preferred 
to  remain  near  Pierrette,  to  whom  he  also  proposed  to  explain 
his  plans  and  the  sort  of  help  she  might  count  on.  Finally, 
he  would  certainly  not  leave  her  till  he  understood  the  secret 
of  the  pallor  which  had  already  dimmed  the  life  of  the  feature 


84  THE  CELIBATES, 

Jrhich  generally  retains  it  longest — the  eyes;  till  he  knew 
what  caused  the  sufferings  that  gave  her  the  look  of  a  girl 
bowing  before  the  scythe  of  death,  and  about  to  be  cut  down. 
Her  two  pathetic  signals,  which  were  not  false  to  their 
friendship,  but  which  enjoined  the  greatest  caution,  struck 
terror  into  the  lad's  heart.  Evidently  Pierrette  desired  him 
to  wait,  and  not  to  try  to  see  her,  or  there  would  be  danger 
and  peril  for  her.  As  she  came  out  of  church  she  gave  him  a 
look,  and  Brigaut  saw  that  her  eyes  were  full  of  tears.  The 
Breton  would  more  easily  have  squared  the  circle  than  have 
guessed  what  had  happened  in  the  Rogrons'  house  since  his 
arrival. 

It  was  not  without  lively  apprehensions  that  Pierrette  came 
down  from  her  room  that  day  when  Brigaut  had  plunged  into 
her  morning  dream  like  another  dream.  Having  risen  and 
opened  her  window,  Mademoiselle  Rogron  must  have  heard 
the  song  and  its  words — compromising,  no  doubt,  in  the  ears 
of  an  old  maid ;  but  Pierrette  knew  nothing  of  the  causes 
that  made  her  cousin  so  alert.  Sylvie  had  good  reasons  for 
getting  up  and  running  to  the  window.  For  about  a  week 
past  strange  secret  events  and  cruel  pangs  of  feeling  had 
agitated  the  principal  figures  in  the  Rogron  salon.  These 
unknown  events,  carefully  concealed  by  all  concerned,  were 
to  fall  on  Pierrette  like  an  icy  avalanche. 

The  realm  of  mysteries,  which  ought  perhaps  to  be  called 
the  foul  places  of  the  human  heart,  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the 
greatest  revolutions,  political,  social,  or  domestic ;  but  in 
speaking  of  them  it  may  be  extremely  useful  to  explain  that 
their  algebraical  expression,  though  accurate,  is  not  faithful 
so  far  as  form  is  concerned.  These  deep  calculations  do  not 
express  themselves  so  brutally  as  history  reports  them.  Any 
attempt  to  relate  the  circumlocutions,  the  rhetorical  involu- 
tions, the  long  colloquies,  in  which  the  mind  designedly 
darkens  the  light  it  casts,  the  honeyed  words  diluting  the 


PIERRETTE.  85 

venom  of  certain  insinuations,  would  mean  writing  a  book  as 
long  as  the  noble  poem  called  "  Clarissa  Harlowe." 

Mademoiselle  Habert  and  Mademoiselle  Rogron  were 
equally  desirous  of  marrying ;  but  one  was  ten  years  younger 
than  the  other,  and  probability  allowed  Celeste  Habert  to 
think  that  her  children  would  inherit  the  Rogrons'  whole 
fortune.  Sylvie  was  almost  forty-two,  an  age  at  which 
marriage  has  its  risks.  In  confiding  their  ideas  to  each  other 
to  secure  mutual  approbation,  Celeste  Habert,  on  a  hint  from 
the  vindictive  abbe,  had  enlightened  Sylvie  as  to  the  possibil- 
ities of  the  position.  The  colonel,  a  violent  man,  with  the 
health  of  a  soldier,  a  burly  bachelor  of  forty-five,  would  no 
doubt  act  on  the  moral  of  all  fairy  tales :  they  lived  happy, 
and  had  many  children.  This  form  of  happiness  alarmed 
Sylvie;  she  was  afraid  of  dying — a  fear  which  tortures 
unmarried  women  to  the  utmost. 

But  the  Martignac  ministry  was  now  established  —  the 
second  victory  which  upset  the  Villele  administration.  Vi- 
net's  party  held  their  head  high  in  Provins.  Vinet,  now  the 
leading  advocate  of  La  Brie,  carried  all  before  him,  to  use  a 
colloquialism.  Vinet  was  a  personage ;  the  Liberals  prophe- 
sied his  advancement ;  he  would  certainly  be  a  deputy  or 
public  prosecutor.  As  to  the  colonel,  he  would  be  mayor  of 
Provins.  Oh  !  to  reign  as  Madame  Garceland  reigned,  to  be 
the  mayoress  !  Sylvie  could  not  resist  this  hope ;  she  deter- 
mined to  consult  a  doctor,  though  it  might  cover  her  with 
ridicule.  The  two  women,  one  triumphant,  and  the  other 
sure  of  having  her  in  leading-strings,  invented  one  of  those 
stratagems  which  women  advised  by  a  priest  are  so  clever  in 
planning.  To  consult  Monsieur  Neraud,  the  Liberal  physi- 
cian. Monsieur  Martener's  rival,  would  be  a  blunder.  Celeste 
Habert  proposed  to  Sylvie  to  hide  her  in  a  dressing-closet 
while  she,  Mademoiselle  Habert,  consulted  Monsieur  Mar- 
tener,  who  attended  the  school,  on  her  own  account.  Whether 
he  were  Celeste's  accomplice  or  not,  Martener  told  his  client 


86  THE  CELIBATES. 

that  there  was  some,  though  very  little,  danger  for  a  woman 
of  thirty.  "But  with  your  constitution,"  he  added,  "you 
have  nothing  to  fear." 

"And  if  a  woman  is  past  forty?"  asked  Mademoiselle 
Celeste  Habert. 

"  A  woman  of  forty  who  has  been  married  and  had  children 
need  fear  nothing." 

"But  an  unmarried  woman,  perfectly  well  conducted — for 
example,  Mademoiselle  Rogron  ?  ' ' 

"  Well  conducted  !  There  can  be  no  doubt,"  said  Mon- 
sieur Martener.  "  In  such  a  case  the  safe  birth  of  a  child  is 
a  miracle  which  God  certainly  works  sometimes,  but  rarely." 

"And  why?  "  asked  Celeste  Habert. 

Whereupon  the  doctor  replied  in  a  terrific  pathological 
description,  explaining  that  the  elasticity  bestowed  by  nature 
on  the  muscles  and  joints  in  youth  ceased  to  exist  at  a  certain 
age,  particularly  in  women  whose  occupations  had  made  them 
sedentary  for  some  years,  like  Mademoiselle  Rogron. 

"And  so,  after  forty,  no  respectable  woman  ought  to 
marry  ? ' ' 

"Or  she  should  wait,"  replied  the  doctor.  "But  then  it 
is  hardly  a  marriage ;  it  is  a  partnership.  What  else  could  it 
be?" 

In  short,  it  was  proved  by  this  consultation,  clearly,  scien- 
tifically, seriously,  and  rationally,  that  after  the  age  of  forty 
a  virtuous  maiden  should  not  rush  into  matrimony. 

When  Monsieur  Martener  had  left,  Mademoiselle  Celeste 
Habert  found  Mademoiselle  Rogron  green  and  yellow,  her 
eyes  dilated — in  fact,  in  a  frightful  state. 

"Then  you  truly  love  the  colonel?"  said  she. 

"  I  still  hoped,"  said  the  old  maid. 

"Well,  then,  wait,"  said  Mademoiselle  Habert,  who  knew 
that  time  would  be  avenged  on  the  colonel. 

The  morality  of  this  marriage  was  also  doubtful.  Sylvie 
went  to  sound  her  conscience  in  the  confessional.     The  stern 


PIERRETTE.  87 

director  expounded  the  views  of  the  church,  which  regards 
marriage  only  as  a  means  of  propagating  the  race,  reprobates 
second  marriages,  and  scorns  passions  that  have  no  social  aim. 
Sylvie  Rogron's  perplexity  was  great.  These  mental  struggles 
gave  strange  force  to  her  passion,  and  lent  it  the  unaccount- 
able charm  which  forbidden  joys  have  always  had  for  women 
since  the  time  of  Eve. 

Mademoiselle  Rogron's  disturbed  state  could  not  escape  the 
lawyer's  keen  eye.  One  evening,  after  cards,  Vinet  went  up 
to  his  dear  friend  Sylvie,  took  her  hand,  and  led  her  to  sit 
down  with  him  on  one  of  the  sofas. 

"  Something  ails  you,"  he  said  in  her  ear. 

She  gloomily  bent  her  head.  The  pleader  let  Rogron  leave 
the  room,  sat  alone  with  the  old  maid,  and  got  her  to  make  a 
clean  breast  of  it. 

"Well  played,  abbe  I  But  you  have  played  my  game  for 
me,"  he  said  to  himself  after  hearing  of  all  the  private  consul- 
tations Sylvie  had  held,  of  which  the  last  was  the  most  alarm- 
ing. 

This  sly  legal  fox  was  even  more  terrible  in  his  explanations 
than  the  doctor  had  been ;  he  advised  the  marriage,  but  only 
ten  years  hence  for  greater  safety.  The  lawyer  vowed  that  all 
the  Rogron  fortune  should  be  Bathilde's.  He  rubbed  his 
hands  and  his  very  face  grew  sharper  as  he  ran  after  Madame 
and  Mademoiselle  de  Chargebceuf,  whom  he  had  left  to  start 
homewards  with  their  servant  armed  with  a  lantern. 

The  influence  exerted  by  Monsieur  Habert,  the  physician 
of  the  soul,  was  entirely  counteracted  by  Vinet,  the  physician 
of  the  purse.  Rogron  was  by  no  means  devout,  so  the  man 
of  the  church  and  the  man  of  the  law,  the  two  black  gowns, 
pulled  him  opposite  ways.  When  he  heard  of  the  victory 
carried  off  by  Mademoiselle  Habert,  who  hoped  to  marry 
Rogron,  over  Sylvie,  hanging  between  the  fear  of  death  and 
the  joy  of  becoming  a  baroness,  Vinet  perceived  the  possi- 
bility of  removing  the  colonel  from  the  scene  of  battle.     He 


88  THE   CELIBATES. 

knew  Rogron  well  enough  to  find  some  means  of  making  him 
marry  the  fair  Bathilde.  Rogron  had  not  been  able  to  resist 
the  blandishments  of  Mademoiselle  de  Chargeboeuf;  Vinet 
knew  that  the  first  time  Rogron  should  be  alone  with  Bathilde 
and  himself  their  engagement  would  be  settled.  Rogron  had 
come  to  the  point  of  staring  at  Mademoiselle  Habert,  so  shy 
was  he  of  looking  at  Bathilde. 

Vinet  had  just  seen  how  much  Sylvie  was  in  love  with  the 
colonel.  He  understood  the  depth  of  such  a  passion  in  an 
old  maid,  no  less  eaten  up  by  bigotry,  and  he  soon  hit  on  a 
plan  for  ruining  at  one  blow  both  Pierrette  and  the  colonel, 
getting  rid  of  one  by  means  of  the  other. 

Next  morning,  on  coming  out  of  court,  he  met  the  colonel 
and  Rogron  walking  together,  their  daily  habit. 

When  these  three  men  were  seen  together,  their  conjunc- 
tion always  made  the  town  talk.  This  triumvirate,  held  in 
horror  by  the  sous-prefet,  the  bench,  and  the  Tiphaine  parti- 
sans, made  a  triad  of  which  the  Liberals  of  Provins  were 
proud.  Vinet  edited  the  Courrier  single-handed  j  he  was  the 
head  of  the  party ;  the  colonel,  the  responsible  manager  of 
the  paper,  was  its  arm ;  Rogron,  with  his  money,  formed  the 
sinews ;  he  was  considered  as  the  link  between  the  managing 
committee  at  Provins  and  the  managing  committee  in  Paris. 
To  hear  the  Tiphaines,  these  three  men  were  always  plotting 
something  against  the  government,  while  the  Liberals  admired 
them  as  defenders  of  the  people.  When  the  lawyer  saw  Ro- 
gron returning  to  the  square,  brought  homewards  by  the  din- 
ner-hour, he  took  the  colonel's  arm  and  hindered  him  from 
accompanying  the  ex-haberdasher. 

**  Look  here,  colonel,"  said  he,  "  I  am  going  to  take  a  great 
weight  off  your  shoulders.  You  can  do  better  than  marry 
Sylvie ;  if  you  go  to  work  the  right  way,  in  two  years'  time 
you  may  marry  little  Pierrette  Lorrain." 

And  he  told  him  the  results  of  the  Jesuit's  skillful  manoeu- 
vring in  the  interest  of  his  sister  Celeste. 


PIERRETTE.  88 

"What  a  clever  stroke — and  reaching  so  far!"  said  the 
colonel. 

"Colonel,"  said  Vinet  gravely,  "Pierrette  is  a  charming 
creature  \  you  may  be  happy  for  the  rest  of  your  days.  You 
have  such  splendid  health,  that  such  a  match  would  not,  for 
you,  have  the  usual  drawbacks  of  an  ill-assorted  marriage ; 
still,  do  not  imagine  that  this  exchange  of  a  terrible  life  for 
a  pleasant  one  will  be  easy  to  effect.  To  convert  your  lady- 
love into  your  confidante  is  a  manoeuvre  as  dangerous  as, 
in  your  profession,  it  is  to  cross  a  river  under  the  enemy's 
fire.  Keen  as  you  are  as  a  cavalry  officer,  you  must  study  the 
position,  and  carry  out  your  tactics  with  the  superior  skill 
which  has  won  us  our  present  position.  If  I  should  one  day 
be  public  prosecutor,  you  may  command  the  department. 
Ah  !  if  only  you  had  a  vote,  we  should  be  farther  on  our 
way.  I  might  have  bought  the  votes  of  those  two  officials  by 
indemnifying  them  for  the  loss  of  their  places,  and  we  should 
have  had  a  majority.  I  should  be  sitting  by  Dupin,  Casimir 
Perier,  and " 

The  colonel  had  for  some  time  past  been  thinking  of  Pier- 
rette, but  he  hid  the  thought  with  deep  dissimulation ;  his 
roughness  to  Pierrette  was  only  on  the  surface.  The  child  could 
not  imagine  why  the  man  who  called  himself  her  father's  old 
comrade  treated  her  so  ill,  when,  if  he  met  her  alone,  he  put 
his  hand  under  her  chin  and  gave  her  a  fatherly  caress.  Ever 
since  Vinet  had  confided  to  him  Mademoiselle  Sylvie's  terror 
of  marriage,  Gouraud  had  sought  opportunities  of  seeing 
Pierrette  alone,  and  then  the  rough  officer  was  as  mild  as  a 
cat ;  he  would  tell  her  how  brave  her  father  was,  and  say 
what  a  misfortune  for  her  his  death  had  been. 

A  few  days  before  Brigaut's  arrival,  Sylvie  had  found  Gou- 
raud and  Pierrette  together.  Jealousy  had  then  entered  into 
her  soul  with  monastic  vehemence.  Jealousy,  which  is  above 
all  passions  credulous  and  suspicious,  is  also  that  in  which 
fancy  has  most  power ;  but  it  does  not  lend  wit,  it  takes  it 


90  THE  CELIBATES. 

away ;  and  in  Sylvie  jealousy  gave  birth  to  very  strange  ideas. 
She  conceived  that  the  man  who  had  sung  the  words  "  Mis- 
tress Bride  "  to  Pierrette  must  be  the  colonel;  and  Sylvie 
thought  she  had  reason  to  ascribe  this  serenade  to  the  colonel, 
because  during  the  last  week  Gouraud's  manner  seemed  to 
have  undergone  a  change.  This  soldier  was  the  only  man 
who,  in  the  solitude  in  which  she  had  lived,  had  ever  troubled 
himself  about  her  ;  hence  she  watched  him  with  all  her  eyes, 
all  her  understanding ;  and  by  dint  of  indulging  in  hopes 
alternately  flourishing  and  blighted,  she  had  given  them  so 
much  scope  that  they  produced  the  effect  on  her  of  a  moral 
mirage.  To  use  a  fine  but  vulgar  expression,  by  dint  of 
looking  she  often  saw  nothing.  By  turns  she  rejected  and 
struggled  victoriously  against  the  notion  of  this  chimerical 
rivalry.  She  instituted  comparisons  between  herself  and 
Pierrette  ;  she  was  forty  and  her  hair  was  gray  \  Pierrette  was 
a  deliciously  white  little  girl,  with  eyes  tender  enough  to 
bring  warmth  to  a  dead  heart.  She  had  heard  it  said  that 
men  of  fifty  were  fond  of  little  girls  like  Pierrette. 

Before  the  colonel  had  sown  his  wild  oats  and  frequented 
the  Rogrons'  drawing-room,  Sylvie  had  heard  at  the  Tiph- 
aines'  parties  strange  reports  of  Gouraud  and  his  doings. 
Old  maids  in  love  have  the  exaggerated  Platonic  notions 
which  girls  of  twenty  are  apt  to  profess ;  they  have  never  lost 
the  hard-and-fast  ideas  which  cling  to  all  who  have  no  expe- 
rience of  life,  nor  learned  how  social  forces  modify,  erode, 
and  coerce  such  fine  and  lofty  notions.  To  Sylvie  the  idea 
of  being  deceived  by  her  colonel  was  a  thought  that  hammered 
at  her  brain. 

So  from  the  hour,  that  morning,  which  every  celibate 
spends  in  bed  between  waking  and  rising,  the  old  maid  had 
thought  of  nothing  but  herself  and  Pierrette,  and  the  song 
which  had  roused  her  by  the  words,  "  Mistress  Bride."  Like 
a  simpleton,  instead  of  peeping  at  the  lover  through  the 
Venetian    shutters,  she    had   opened   her    window,   without 


PIERRETTE.  91 

reflecting  that  Pierrette  would  hear  her.  If  she  had  but  had 
the  common  wit  of  a  spy,  she  would  have  seen  Brigaut,  and 
the  fateful  drama  then  begun  would  not  have  taken  place. 

Pierrette,  weak  as  she  was,  removed  the  wooden  bars 
which  fastened  the  kitchen  shutters,  opened  the  shutters,  and 
hooked  them  back,  then  she  opened  the  passage  door  leading 
into  the  garden.  She  took  the  various  brooms  needed  for 
sweeping  the  carpet,  the  dining-room  floor,  the  passage,  the 
stairs,  in  short,  for  cleaning  everything  with  such  care  and 
exactitude  as  no  servant,  not  even  a  Dutch  one,  would  give  to 
her  work;  she  hated  the  least  reproof.  To  her,  happiness 
consisted  in  seeing  Sylvie's  little  blue  eyes,  colorless  and  cold, 
with  a  look — not  indeed  of  satisfaction,  that  they  never  wore 
— only  calm  when  she  had  examined  everything  with  the 
owner's  eye,  the  inscrutable  glance  which  sees  what  escapes 
the  keenest  observer. 

By  the  time  Pierrette  returned  to  the  kitchen  her  skin  was 
moist ;  then  she  put  everything  in  order,  lighted  the  stove  so 
as  to  have  live  charcoal,  made  the  fire  in  her  cousins'  rooms, 
and  put  hot  water  for  their  toilet,  though  she  had  none  for 
hers.  She  laid  the  table  for  breakfast  and  lighted  the  dining- 
room  stove.  For  all  these  various  tasks  she  had  to  go  to  the 
cellar  to  fetch  brushwood,  leaving  a  cool  place  to  go  to  a  hot 
one,  or  a  hot  place  to  go  into  the  cold  and  damp.  These 
sudden  changes,  made  with  the  reckless  haste  of  youth,  merely 
to  avoid  a  hard  word,  or  to  obey  some  order,  aggravated  the 
state  of  her  health  beyond  remedy.  Pierrette  did  not  know 
that  she  was  ill.  Still  she  felt  the  beginnings  of  sufferings ; 
she  had  strange  longings,  and  hid  them ;  a  passion  for  raw 
salad,  which  she  devoured  in  secret.  The  innocent  child  had 
no  idea  that  this  state  meant  serious  disease,  and  needed  the 
greatest  care.  Before  Brigaut's  arrival,  if  Neraud,  who  might 
accuse  himself  of  her  grandmother's  death,  had  revealed  this 
mortal  peril  to  the  little  girl,  she  would  have  smiled ;  she 
found  life  too  bitter  not  to  smile  at  death.     But  within  these 


92  THE   CELIBATES. 

last  few  minutes,  she,  who  added  to  her  physical  ailments  the 
Breton  home-sickness — a  moral  sickness  so  well  known,  that 
colonels  of  regiments  reckon  on  it  in  the  Bretons  who  serve 
in  their  regiments — she  loved  Provins.  The  sight  of  that 
gold-colored  flower,  that  song,  the  presence  of  the  friend  of 
her  childhood,  had  revived  her  as  a  plant  long  deprived  of 
water  recovers  after  hours  of  rain.  She  wanted  to  live ;  she 
did  not  believe  that  she  had  suffered  ! 

She  timidly  stole  into  Sylvie's  room,  lighted  the  fire,  left 
the  hot-water  pot,  spoke  a  few  words,  went  to  awake  her 
guardian,  and  then  ran  downstairs  to  take  in  the  milk,  the 
bread,  and  the  other  provisions  supplied  by  the  tradesmen. 
She  stood  for  some  time  on  the  doorstep,  hoping  that  Brigaut 
would  have  the  wit  to  return ;  but  Brigaut  was  already  on  the 
road  to  Paris.  She  had  dusted  the  drawing-room  and  was 
busy  in  the  kitchen,  when  she  heard  her  cousin  Sylvie  com- 
ing downstairs.  Mademoiselle  Rogron  made  her  appearance 
in  a  Carmelite-gray  silk  dressing-gown ;  on  her  head  a  tulle 
cap  decorated  with  bows,  her  false  curls  put  on  askew,  her 
nightdress  showing  above  the  wrapper,  her  feet  slipshod  in  her 
slippers.  She  inspected  everything,  and  came  to  her  little 
cousin,  who  was  waiting  to  know  what  they  would  have  for 
breakfast. 

"So  there  you  are.  Miss  Ladylove  !  "  said  Sylvie  to  Pier- 
rette, in  a  half-merry,  half-mocking  tone. 

**  I  beg  your  pardon,  cousin  ?  " 

**  You  crept  into  my  room  like  a  sneak  and  out  again  in  the 
same  way ;  but  you  must  have  known  that  I  should  have 
something  to  say  to  you." 

"Tome?" 

"  You  have  had  a  serenade  this  morning  like  a  princess, 
neither  more  nor  less." 

'*  A  serenade?  "  exclaimed  Pierrette. 

"A  serenade!"  echoed  Sylvie,  mimicking  her.  "And 
you  have  a  lover." 


PIERRETTE.  93 

"  Cousin,  what  do  you  mean  by  a  lover?  "  Sylvie  evaded 
the  question,  and  said — 

"  Do  you  dare  to  say,  mademoiselle,  that  a  man  did  not 
come  under  our  windows  and  talk  to  you  of  marriage  ?  " 

Persecution  had  taught  Pierrette  the  cunning  indispens- 
able to  slaves  ;  she  boldly  replied,  **  I  do  not  know  what  you 
mean ' ' 

"  Dog "  added  the  old  maid,  in  vinegar  tones. 

**  Cousin,"  said  Pierrette  humbly. 

"  And  you  did  not  get  up,  I  suppose,  and  did  not  go  bare- 
foot to  your  window?  Enough  to  give  you  some  bad  illness. 
Well,  catch  it,  and  serve  you  right !  And  I  suppose  you  did 
not  talk  to  your  lover  ?  " 

"  No,  cousin." 

**  I  knew  you  had  a  great  many  faults,  but  I  did  not  know 
you  told  lies.  Think  of  what  you  are  about,  mademoiselle. 
You  will  have  to  tell  your  cousin  Denis  and  me  all  about  the 
scene  of  this  morning,  and  explain  it,  too;  otherwise  your 
guardian  will  have  to  take  strong  measures." 

The  old  maid,  devoured  by  jealousy  and  curiosity,  was 
trying  intimidation.  Pierrette  did  as  all  people  must  who 
are  enduring  beyond  their  strength — she  kept  silent.  Silence 
is  to  all  creatures  thus  attacked  the  only  means  of  salvation ; 
it  fatigues  the  Cossack  charges  of  the  envious,  the  enemy's 
savage  rushes ;  it  results  in  a  crushing  and  complete  victory. 
What  is  more  complete  than  silence  ?  It  is  final.  Is  it  not 
one  of  the  modes  of  the  Infinite  ? 

Sylvie  looked  stealthily  at  Pierrette.  The  child  colored  ; 
but  instead  of  flushing  all  over,  the  red  lay  in  patches  on  her 
cheeks,  in  burning  spots  of  symptomatic  hue.  On  seeing 
these  signals  of  ill-health,  a  mother  would  at  once  have 
changed  her  note ;  she  would  have  taken  the  child  on  her 
knee,  have  questioned  her,  have  acquired  long  since  a  thou- 
sand proofs  of  Pierrette's  perfect  and  beautiful  innocence, 
have  suspected  her  weakness,  and  understood  that  the  blood 


M  THE  CELIBATES. 

and  humors  diverted  from  their  course  were  thrown  back  on 
the  lungs  after  disturbing  the  digestive  functions.  Those 
eloquent  scarlet  patches  would  have  warned  her  of  imminent 
and  mortal  danger.  But  an  old  maid  to  whom  the  feelings 
that  guard  the  family,  the  needs  of  childhood,  the  care  re- 
quired in  early  womanhood  were  all  unknown  could  have 
none  of  the  indulgence  and  the  pity  that  are  inspired  by  the 
thousand  incidents  of  married  and  maternal  life.  The  suffer- 
ings of  misery,  instead  of  softening  her  heart,  had  made  it 
callous. 

"She  blushes — she  has  done  wrong!"  thought  Sylvie. 
So  Pierrette's  silence  received  the  worst  construction, 

"Pierrette,"  said  she,  "before  your  cousin  Denis  comes 
down  we  will  have  a  little  talk.  Come,"  she  went  on  in  a 
milder  tone.  "  Shut  the  door  to  the  street.  If  any  one 
comes,  they  will  ring;  we  shall  hear." 

In  spite  of  the  damp  fog  rising  from  the  river,  Sylvie  led 
Pierrette  along  the  graveled  path  that  zigzagged  between  the 
grass-plots,  to  the  edge  of  the  terrace  built  in  a  so-called 
picturesque  style  of  broken  rock-work  planted  with  flags  and 
other  water-plants.  The  old  cousin  now  changed  her  tactics ; 
she  would  try  to  catch  Pierrette  by  gentleness.  The  hyena 
would  play  the  cat. 

"Pierrette,"  said  she,  "you  are  no  longer  a  child;  you 
will  soon  set  foot  in  your  fifteenth  year,  and  it  would  not  be 
at  all  astonishing  if  you  had  a  lover." 

"But,  cousin,"  said  Pierrette,  raising  her  eyes  of  angelic 
sweetness  to  her  cousin's  cold,  sour  face,  for  Sylvie  had  put 
on  her  saleswoman  expression,  "  what  is  a  lover?  " 

It  was  impossible  to  Sylvie  to  define  to  her  brother's  ward 
with  accuracy  and  decency  what  she  meant  by  a  lover ;  instead 
of  regarding  the  question  as  the  result  of  adorable  innocence, 
she  treated  it  as  mendacious. 

"A  lover,  Pierrette,  is  a  man  who  loves  you  and  wishes  to 
marry  you." 


PIERRETTE.  d6 

"Ah  !  "  said  Pierrette.  "  In  Brittany  when  two  persons 
are  agreed,  we  call  the  young  man  a  suitor." 

"Well,  understand  that  there  is  not  the  smallest  harm  in 
confessing  your  feeling  for  a  man,  my  child.  The  harm  is 
in  secrecy.  Have  you,  do  you  think,  taken  the  fancy  of  any 
man  who  comes  here  ? '  * 

"I  do  not  think  so." 

*'  You  do  not  love  one  of  them  ?  *' 

"No  one." 

"Quite  sure?" 

"  Quite  sure." 

"  Look  me  in  the  face,  Pierrette." 

Pierrette  looked  at  her  cousin. 

"  And  yet  a  man  spoke  to  you  from  the  square  this  morn- 
ing?" 

Pierrette  looked  down. 

"You  went  to  your  window,  you  opened  it,  and  spoke  to 
him." 

"  No,  cousin ;  I  wanted  to  see  what  the  weather  was  like, 
and  I  saw  a  countryman  on  the  square." 

"  Pierrette,  since  your  first  communion  you  have  improved 
greatly,  you  are  obedient  and  pious,  you  love  your  relations 
and  God  ;  I  am  pleased  with  you,  but  I  have  never  told  you 
so  for  fear  of  inflaming  your  pride." 

The  horrible  woman  mistook  the  dejection,  the  submission, 
the  silence  of  wretchedness  for  virtues  !  One  of  the  sweetest 
things  that  brings  comfort  to  the  sufferer,  to  martyrs,  to  artists, 
in  the  midst  of  the  Divine  wrath  roused  in  them  by  envy  and 
hatred,  is  to  meet  with  praise  from  some  quarter  whence  they 
have  always  had  blame  and  bad  faith.  So  Pierrette  looked  up 
at  her  cousin  with  attentive  eyes,  and  felt  ready  to  forgive  her 
all  the  pain  she  had  caused  her, 

"  But  if  it  is  all  mere  hypocrisy,  if  I  am  to  find  in  you  a 
serpent  I  have  cherished  in  my  bosom,  you  would  be  an  in- 
famous, a  horrible  creature  !  " 


96  THE   CELIBATES. 

"  I  do  not  think  I  have  anything  to  blame  myself  for," 
said  Pierrette,  feeling  a  dreadful  pang  at  her  heart  on  this 
sudden  transition  from  unexpected  praise  to  the  terrible  accent 
of  the  hyena, 

"  You  know  that  lying  is  a  mortal  sin  ?  " 

"Yes,  cousin." 

"Well,  then,  you  stand  before  God!  "  said  the  old  maid, 
pointing  with  a  solemn  gesture  to  the  gardens  and  the  sky. 
*'  Swear  to  me  that  you  do  not  know  that  countryman." 

"  I  will  not  swear,"  said  Pierrette. 

"  Ah  !  he  was  not  a  countryman  !     Little  viper  !  " 

Pierrette  fled  across  the  garden  like  a  startled  fawn,  appalled 
by  this  moral  dilemma.  Her  cousin  called  to  her  in  an  awful 
voice. 

**  The  bell,"  she  replied. 

"  What  a  sly  little  wretch  !  "  said  Sylvie  to  herself.  "  She 
has  a  perverse  nature,  and  I  am  sure  now  that  the  little  ser- 
pent has  twisted  herself  round  the  colonel.  She  has  heard  us 
say  that  he  is  a  baron.  A  baroness,  indeed  !  Little  fool ! 
Oh  !  I  will  be  rid  of  her  by  placing  her  as  an  apprentice,  and 
pretty  soon  too  !  " 

Sylvie  was  so  lost  in  thought  that  she  did  not  see  her  brother 
coming  down  the  walk  and  contemplating  the  mischief  done 
by  the  frost  to  his  dahlias. 

"Well,  Sylvie,  what  are  you  thinking  about  there?  I 
thought  you  were  looking  at  the  fishes  ;  sometimes  they  jump 
out  of  the  water." 

"  No,"  said  she. 

"  Well,  how  did  you  sleep  ?  "  and  he  proceeded  to  tell  her 
his  dreams  of  the  past  night.  "  Do  you  not  think  that  my 
face  looks  patchy?"  a  favorite  word  with  the  Rogrcns.  Since 
Rogron  had  loved — nay,  we  will  not  profane  the  word — had 
desired  Mademoiselle  de  Chargeboeuf,  he  had  been  very  anx- 
ious about  his  appearance  and  himself. 

At  this  moment  Pierrette  came  down  the  steps  and  called 


PIERRETTE.  97 

to  them  that  breakfast  was  ready.  On  seeing  her  little  cousin, 
Sylvie's  complexion  turned  green  and  yellow  ;  all  her  bile 
rose.  She  examined  the  passage,  and  said  that  Pierrette 
ought  to  have  polished  it  with  foot-brushes. 

"  I  will  polish  it  if  you  wish,"  replied  the  angel,  not  know- 
ing how  injurious  this  form  of  labor  is  to  a  young  girl. 

The  dining-room  was  above  blame.  Sylvie  sat  down,  and 
all  through  breakfast  affected  to  want  things  that  she  never 
would  have  thought  of  in  a  calmer  frame  of  mind,  seeking  for 
them  simply  to  make  Pierrette  rise  to  fetch  them,  and  always 
just  as  the  poor  child  was  beginning  to  eat.  But  mere  nag- 
ging was  not  enough ;  she  sought  some  subject  for  fault-find- 
ing, and  fumed  with  internal  rage  at  finding  none.  If  they 
had  been  eating  eggs,  she  would  certainly  have  complained 
of  the  boiling  of  hers.  She  hardly  replied  to  her  brother's 
silly  talk,  and  yet  she  looked  only  at  him  ;  her  eyes  avoided 
Pierrette,  who  was  keenly  aware  of  this  behavior. 

Pierrette  brought  in  the  coffee  for  her  cousins  in  a  large 
silver  cup,  which  served  to  heat  the  milk  in,  mixed  with 
cream,  in  a  saucepan  of  hot  water.  The  brother  and  sister 
then  added,  to  their  taste,  the  black  coffee  which  was  made 
by  Sylvie.  When  she  had  carefully  prepared  this  dainty, 
Sylvie  detected  in  it  a  faint  cloud  of  coffee  dust ;  she  carefully 
skimmed  it  off  the  tawny  mixture  and  looked  at  it,  leaning 
over  to  examine  it  more  minutely.     Then  the  storm  burst. 

"What  is  the  matter?  "  asked  Rogron. 

"  The  matter !  Miss,  here,  has  put  ashes  in  my  coffee. 
Ashes  in  coffee  are  so  nice  !  Well,  well !  It  is  not  astonish- 
ing ;  no  one  can  do  two  things  at  once.  Much  she  was 
thinking  of  the  coffee !  A  blackbird  might  have  flown 
through  the  kitchen,  and  she  would  not  have  heeded  it  this 
morning !  How  should  she  see  the  ashes  flying  ?  And  then 
— only  her  cousin's  !     Much  she  cares  about  it !  " 

She  went  on  in  this  way,  while  she  elaborately  laid  on  the 
edge  of  her  plate  some  fine  coffee  that  had  passed  through 
7 


98  THE  CELIBATES. 

the  filter,  mixed  with  some  grains  of  sugar  that  had  not 
melted. 

"  But,  cousin,  that  is  coffee,"  said  Pierrette. 

"  So  I  am  a  liar  now?  "  exclaimed  Sylvie,  looking  at  Pier- 
rette, and  scorching  her  by  a  fearful  flash  that  her  eyes  could 
dart  when  she  was  angry. 

These  temperaments,  which  passion  has  never  exhausted, 
have  at  command  a  great  supply  of  the  vital  fluid.  This 
phenomenon  of  extreme  brightness  in  her  eye  under  the  influ- 
ence of  rage  was  all  the  more  confirmed  in  Mademoiselle 
Rogron  because  formerly,  in  her  shop,  she  had  had  occasion 
to  try  the  power  of  her  gaze  by  opening  her  eyes  enormously 
wide,  always  to  fill  her  dependents  with  salutary  terror. 

"  I  will  teach  you  to  give  me  the  lie,"  she  went  on  ;  "  you, 
who  deserve  to  be  sent  away  from  table  to  feed  by  yourself  in 
the  kitchen." 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you  both?"  cried  Rogron. 
*'  You  are  as  cross  as  two  sticks  this  morning." 

"  Oh,  my  lady  knows  what  I  mean  !  I  am  giving  her  time 
to  make  up  her  mind  before  speaking  to  you  about  it,  for  I 
am  much  kinder  to  her  than  she  deserves." 

Pierrette  looked  through  the  window  out  on  to  the  square, 
so  as  not  to  meet  her  cousin's  eyes,  which  frightened  her. 

"  She  pays  no  more  heed  than  if  I  were  talking  to  this 
sugar-basin !  And  she  has  sharp  ears,  too ;  she  can  speak 
from  the  top  of  the  house  to  answer  some  one  below.  She  is 
that  perverse  !  Your  ward  is  aggravating  beyond  words,  and 
you  need  look  for  nothing  good  from  her  ;  do  you  hear  me, 
Rogron?" 

"  What  has  she  done  that  is  so  wicked  ?  "  asked  Rogron. 

"At  her  age  too  !  It  is  beginning  young  !  "  cried  the  old 
maid  in  a  fury. 

Pierrette  rose  to  clear  away,  just  to  keep  herself  in  counte- 
nance ;  she  did  not  know  which  way  to  look.  Though  such 
language  was  nothing  new  to  her,  she  never  could  get  used  to 


PIERRETTE.  99 

it.  Her  cousin's  rage  made  her  feel  as  though  she  had  com- 
mitted some  crime.  She  wondered  what  her  rage  would  be 
if  she  knew  of  Brigaut's  escapade.  Perhaps  they  would  keep 
Brigaut  away.  All  the  thousand  ideas  of  a  slave  crowded  on 
her  at  once,  thoughts  swift  and  deep,  and  she  resolved  to 
resist  by  absolute  silence  as  to  an  incident  in  which  her  con- 
science could  see  no  evil. 

She  had  to  endure  words  so  cruel,  so  harsh,  insinuations  so 
insulting,  that  on  her  return  to  the  kitchen  she  was  seized 
with  cramp  in  the  stomach  and  a  violent  attack  of  sickness. 
She  dared  not  complain ;  she  was  not  sure  of  getting  any 
care.  She  turned  pale  and  faint,  said  that  she  felt  ill,  and 
went  up  to  bed,  clinging  to  the  banisters  at  every  step,  and 
believing  that  her  last  hour  had  come.  "Poor  Brigaut!" 
thought  she. 

"She  is  ill,"  said  Rogron. 

"She  ill!  It  is  all  megrims,"  said  Sylvie,  loud  enough 
to  be  overheard.  "  She  was  not  ill  this  morning,  I  can 
tell  you!" 

This  last  shot  was  too  much  for  Pierrette,  who  crept  to  bed 
in  tears,  praying  to  God  to  remove  her  from  this  world. 

For  a  month  past  Rogron  had  no  longer  carried  the  Con- 
siitutionnel  to  Gouraud ;  the  colonel  obsequiously  came  to 
fetch  the  newspaper,  to  make  talk,  and  take  Rogron  out  when 
the  weather  was  fine.  Sylvie,  sure  of  seeing  the  colonel,  and 
being  able  to  question  him,  dressed  herself  coquettishly.  The 
old  maid  thought  she  achieved  this  by  putting  on  a  green 
gown,  a  little  yellow  cashmere  shawl  bordered  with  red,  and 
a  white  bonnet  with  meagre  gray  feathers.  At  the  hour  when 
the  colonel  was  due,  she  settled  herself  in  the  drawing-room 
with  her  brother,  making  him  keep  on  his  dressing-gown  and 
slippers. 

"It  is  a  fine  morning,  colonel,"  said  Rogron,  hearing 
Gouraud's  heavy  step;  "  but  I  am  not  dressed,  my  sister  perhaps 


100  THE   CELIBATES. 

wanted  to  go  out,  she  left  me  to  mind  the  house  j  wait 
for  me." 

Rogron  went  off,  leaving  Sylvie  with  the  colonel. 

"Where  are  you  going?  you  are  dressed  like  a  goddess," 
observed  Gouraud,  seeing  a  certain  solemnity  of  expression 
on  the  old  maid's  battered  face. 

**  Yes,  I  was  going  out ;  but  as  the  child  is  not  well,  I  must 
stay  at  home." 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  her?  " 

*'  I  do  not  know;  she  asked  to  go  to  bed," 

Gouraud's  cautiousness,  not  to  say  his  distrust,  was  con- 
stantly on  the  alert  as  a  result  of  his  collusion  with  Vinet. 
The  lawyer  evidently  had  the  best  of  it.  He  edited  the 
paper,  he  ruled  it  as  a  master,  and  applied  the  profits  to  the 
editing ;  whereas  the  colonel,  the  responsible  stalking-horse, 
got  little  enough.  Who  was  to  be  the  depute  ?  Vinet.  Who 
the  great  electioneer  ?  Vinet.  Who  was  always  consulted  ? 
Vinet. 

Then  he  knew,  at  least  as  well  as  Vinet,  the  extent  and 
depth  of  the  passion  consuming  Rogron  for  the  fair  Bathilde 
de  Chargeboeuf.  This  passion  was  becoming  a  mania,  as  all 
the  lowest  passions  of  men  do.  Bathilde's  voice  made  the 
old  bachelor  thrill.  Rogron,  thinking  only  of  his  desire, 
concealed  it ;  he  dared  not  hope  for  such  a  match.  The 
colonel,  to  sound  him,  had  told  Rogron  that  he  was  about  to 
propose  for  Bathilde's  hand  ;  Rogron  had  turned  pale  at  the 
mere  thought  of  such  a  formidable  rival  ;  he  had  become 
cold  to  Gouraud,  almost  hostile.  Thus  Vinet  in  every  way 
ruled  the  roost,  while  he,  the  colonel,  was  tied  to  the  house 
only  by  the  doubtful  bond  of  a  love  which,  on  his  part,  was 
but  feigned,  and  on  Sylvie's  as  yet  unconfessed.  When  the 
lawyer  had  divulged  the  priest's  manoeuvre  and  advised  him 
to  throw  over  Sylvie  and  pay  his  addresses  to  Pierrette,  Vinet 
had  humored  his  inclinations ;  still,  as  the  colonel  analyzed 
the  true  purport  of  this  suggestion,  and  examined  the  ground 


PIERRETTE.  101 

on  which  he  stood,  he  fancied  he  could  discern  in  his  ally 
some  hope  of  making  mischief  between  him  and  Sylvie,  and 
taking  advantage  of  the  old  maid's  fears  to  make  the  whole 
of  Rogron's  fortune  fall  into  Mademoiselle  de  Chargeboeuf's 
hands. 

Hence,  when  Rogron  left  him  alone  with  Sylvie,  the  col- 
onel's acumen  seized  on  the  slight  indications  which  betrayed 
some  uneasiness  in  Sylvie.  He  saw  that  she  had  planned  to 
be  under  arms  and  alone  with  him  for  a  minute.  Gouraud, 
who  already  vehemently  suspected  Vinet  of  playing  him  some 
malignant  trick,  ascribed  this  conference  to  a  secret  sugges- 
tion of  this  legal  ape ;  he  put  himself  on  guard,  as  when  he 
had  been  making  a  reconnoissance  in  the  enemy's  country, 
keeping  an  eye  on  the  whole  prospect,  listening  for  the  least 
sound,  his  mind  alert,  his  hand  on  his  weapon.  It  was  the 
colonel's  weakness  never  to  believe  a  word  said  by  a  woman; 
and  when  the  old  maid  spoke  of  Pierrette,  and  said  she  was  in 
bed  at  midday,  he  concluded  that  Sylvie  had  simply  put  her 
in  disgrace  in  her  room  out  of  jealousy. 

"  The  child  is  growing  very  pretty,"  said  he,  in  an  indiffer- 
ent tone. 

"Yes,  she  will  be  pretty,"  replied  Mademoiselle  Rogron. 

"You  ought  now  to  send  her  to  a  shop  in  Paris,"  added  the 
colonel.  "  She  would  make  a  fortune.  They  look  out  for 
very  pretty  girls  now  in  the  milliners'  shops." 

**  Is  that  really  your  advice?  "  asked  Sylvie,  in  an  anxious 
voice. 

"Good!  I  have  hit  it!"  thought  the  colonel.  "Vinet's 
advice  that  Pierrette  and  I  should  marry  by-and-by  was  only 
intended  to  place  me  in  this  old  witch's  black-books.  Why," 
he  said  aloud,  "  what  do  you  expect  to  do  with  her?  Do  you 
not  see  a  perfectly  lovely  girl,  Bathilde  de  Chargeboeuf,  of 
noble  birth,  well  connected,  and  left  to  become  an  old  maid. 
No  one  will  have  anything  to  say  to  her.  Pierrette  has  noth- 
ing ;  she  will  never  marry.     Do  you  suppose  that  youth  and 


102  THE    CELIBATES. 

beauty  have  any  attraction  for  me,  for  instance? — for  me, 
who,  as  captain  of  artillery  in  the  Imperial  Guard  from  the 
first  day  when  the  Emperor  had  a  guard,  have  had  my  feet 
in  every  capital  in  Europe,  and  known  the  prettiest  women  in 
them  all  ?  Youth  and  beauty — they  are  deuced  common  and 
silly.     Don't  talk  of  them  to  me  ! 

"At  eight-and-forty,"  he  went  on,  adding  to  his  age,  "when 
a  man  has  gone  through  the  retreat  from  Moscow  and  the 
dreadful  campaign  in  France,  his  loins  are  a  bit  weary ;  I  am 
an  old  fellow.  Now,  a  wife  like  you  would  cosset  me  and  take 
care  of  me ;  her  fortune,  added  to  my  few  thousand  francs  of 
pension,  would  secure  me  suitable  comfort  for  my  old  age, 
and  I  should  like  her  a  thousand  times  better  than  a  minx 
who  would  give  me  no  end  of  trouble,  who  would  be  thirty 
and  have  her  passions  when  I  should  be  sixty  and  have  the 
rheumatism.  At  my  time  of  life  we  think  of  these  things. 
And,  between  you  and  me,  I  may  add  that  if  I  marry,  I  should 
hope  to  have  no  children." 

Sylvie's  face  was  transparent  to  the  colonel  all  through  this 
speech,  and  her  reply  was  enough  to  assure  him  of  Vinet's 
perfidy. 

**  So  you  are  not  in  love  with  Pierrette?"  she  exclaimed. 

"Bless  me!  Are  you  crazy,  my  dear  Sylvie?"  cried  he. 
"  When  we  have  lost  all  our  teeth,  is  it  time  to  crack  nuts  ? 
Thank  God,  I  still  have  my  wits,  and  know  myself" 

Sylvie  would  not  then  say  more  about  herself;  she  thought 
herself  very  wily  in  using  her  brother's  name. 

"My  brother,*'  said  she,  "had  thought  of  your  marrying 
her." 

"  Your  brother  can  never  have  had  such  a  ]:)reposterous 
notion.  A  few  days  ago,  to  find  out  his  secret,  I  told 
him  that  I  was  in  love  with  Bathilde  ;  he  turned  as  white  as 
your  collar," 

"Is  he  in  love  with  Bathilde?"  said  Sylvie. 

"  Madly  !    And  Bathilde  certainly  loves  only  his  money." 


PIERRETTE.  103 

("  One  for  you,  Vinet,"  thought  Gouraud.)  "  What  should 
have  made  him  speak  of  Pierrette?  No,  Sylvie,"  he  went 
on,  taking  her  hand  and  pressing  it  with  meaning,  "  since 
you  have  led  to  the  subject  " — he  went  close  to  her — "  well  " 
— he  kissed  her  hand ;  he  was  a  cavalry  colonel,  and  had 
given  proofs  of  courage — "know  this:  I  want  no  wife  but 
you.  Though  the  marriage  will  look  like  a  marriage  for 
money,  I  feel  true  affection  for  you." 

''But  it  was  I  who  wished  that  you  should  marry  Pier- 
rette ;  and  if  I  were  to  give  her  ray  money — what  then, 
colonel?" 

"But  I  do  not  want  to  have  a  wretched  home,  or  to 
see,  ten  years  hence,  some  young  whippersnapper,  such  as 
JuUiard,  hovering  around  my  wife,  and  writing  verses  to 
her  in  the  newspaper.  I  am  too  much  a  man  on  that 
score;  I  will  never  marry  a  woman  out  of  all  proportion, 
too  young." 

"  Well,  colonel,  we  will  talk  that  over  seriously,"  said 
Sylvie,  with  a  glance  she  thought  amorous,  and  which  was 
very  like  that  of  an  ogress.  Her  cold,  raw  purple  lips 
parted  over  her  yellow  teeth,  and  she  fancied  she  was 
smiling. 

"Here  I  am,"  said  Rogron,  and  he  led  away  the  colonel, 
who  bowed  courteously  to  the  old  maid. 

Gouraud  was  determined  to  hasten  his  marriage  with  Sylvie 
and  so  become  master  of  the  house  ;  promising  himself  that, 
through  the  influence  he  would  acquire  over  Sylvie  during  the 
honeymoon,  he  would  get  rid  both  of  Bathilde  and  of  Celeste 
Habert.  So,  as  they  walked,  he  told  Rogron  that  he  had 
been  making  fun  of  him  the  other  day ;  that  he  had  no 
intentions  of  winning  Bathilde's  heart,  not  being  rich  enough 
to  take  a  wife  who  had  no  money.  Then  he  confided  his 
projects ;  he  had  long  since  chosen  Sylvie  for  her  admirable 
qualities ;  in  short,  he  aspired  to  the  honor  of  becoming  his 
brother-in-law. 


104  THE   CELIBATES. 

"  Oh,  colonel  !  Oh,  Baron !  If  only  my  consent  were 
needed,  it  would  be  done  as  soon  as  legal  delays  should 
allow  !  "  cried  Rogron,  delighted  to  find  himself  relieved  of 
this  terrible  rival. 

Sylvie  spent  the  whole  morning  examining  her  own  rooms 
to  see  if  there  were  accommodation  for  a  couple.  She  deter- 
mined on  building  another  story  for  her  brother,  and  having 
the  second  floor  for  herself  and  her  husband  ;  but  she  also  prom- 
ised herself,  in  accordance  with  the  notions  of  every  old  maid, 
to  put  the  colonel  to  some  tests,  so  as  to  judge  of  his  heart 
and  habits  before  making  up  her  mind.  She  still  had  doubts, 
and  wanted  to  make  sure  that  Pierrette  had  no  intimacy  with 
the  colonel. 

At  dinner-time  the  girl  came  down  to  lay  the  clolh.  Sylvie 
had  been  obliged  to  do  the  cooking,  and  had  spotted  her 
gown,  exclaiming,  "Curse  Pierrette!  "  For  it  was  evident, 
indeed,  that  if  Pierrette  had  cooked  the  dinner,  Sylvie  would 
not  have  had  a  grease-stain  on  her  silk  dress. 

"  So  here  you  are,  you  little  coddle.  You  are  like  the 
blacksmith's  dog  that  sleeps  under  the  forge  and  wakes  at  the 
sound  of  a  saucepan.  So  you  want  me  to  believe  that  you 
are  ill,  you  little  story-teller!  " 

The  one  idea,  "You  did  not  confess  the  truth  as  to  what 
took  place  this  morning,  therefore  everything  you  say  is  a 
lie,"  was  like  a  hammer  with  which  Sylvie  was  prepared  to 
hit  incessantly  on  Pierrette's  head  and  heart. 

To  Pierrette's  great  astonishment,  Sylvie  sent  her  after 
dinner  to  dress  for  the  evening.  The  liveliest  imagination  is 
no  match  for  the  energy  which  suspicion  gives  to  the  mind 
of  an  old  maid.  In  such  a  case,  the  old  maid  beats  politi- 
cians, attorneys,  and  notaries,  bill-brokers  and  misers.  Sylvie 
promised  herself  that  she  would  consult  Vinet  after  looking 
well  about  her.  She  meant  to  keep  Pierrette  in  the  room,  so 
as  to  judge  for  herself  by  the  child's  face  whether  the  colonel 
had  told  the  truth. 


PIERRETTE.  105 

The  first  to  come  were  Madame  de  Chargeboeuf  and  her 
daughter.  By  her  cousin  Vinet's  advice,  Bathilde  had 
dressed  with  twice  her  usual  elegance.  She  wore  a  most 
becoming  blue  cotton-velvet  gown,  the  clear  kerchief  as 
before,  bunches  of  grapes  in  garnets  and  gold  for  earrings, 
her  hair  in  ringlets,  the  artful  necklet,  little  black  satin  shoes, 
gray  silk  stockings,  and  Suede  gloves,  and  then  queenly  airs 
and  girlish  coquettishness  enough  to  catch  every  Rogron  in 
the  river.  Her  mother,  calm  and  dignified,  had  preserved, 
as  had  Bathilde,  a  certain  aristocratic  impertinence  by  which 
these  two  women  redeemed  everything,  betraying  the  spirit 
of  their  caste.  Bathilde  was  gifted  with  superior  intelligence, 
though  Vinet  alone  had  been  able  to  discern  it  after  the  two 
months  that  these  ladies  had  spent  in  his  house.  When  he 
had  sounded  the  depths  of  this  girl,  depressed  by  the  useless- 
ness  of  her  youth  and  beauty,  but  enlightened  by  the  con- 
tempt she  felt  for  the  men  of  a  period  when  money  was  their 
sole  idol,  Vinet  exclaimed  in  surprise — 

"  If  I  had  but  married  you,  Bathilde,  by  this  time  I  should 
have  been  keeper  of  the  seals ;  I  would  have  called  myself 
Vinet  de  Chargeboeuf,  and  have  sat  on  the  right." 

Bathilde  had  no  vulgar  aims  in  her  wish  to  be  married; 
she  would  not  marry  for  motherhood,  nor  for  the  sake  of  hav- 
ing a  husband;  she  would  marry  to  be  free,  to  have  a  "re- 
sponsible publisher,"  as  it  were — to  be  called  madame,  and  to 
act  as  men  act.  Rogron  to  her  was  a  name  ;  she  thought  she 
could  make  something  of  this  imbecile  creature — a  depute, 
who  might  vote  while  she  pulled  the  wires ;  she  wanted  to  be 
revenged  on  her  family,  who  had  paid  little  heed  to  a  penni- 
less girl.  Vinet,  admiring  and  encouraging  her  ideas,  had 
greatly  extended  and  strengthened  them. 

"  My  dear  cousin,"  said  he,  explaining  to  her  the  influence 
exerted  by  women,  and  pointing  out  the  sphere  of  action 
proper  to  them,  "  do  you  suppose  that  Tiphaine,  a  profoundly 
mediocre  man.  can  by  his  own  merits  rise  to  sit  on  the  lower 


106  THE   CELIBATES. 

bench  in  Paris?  It  is  Madame  Tiphaine  who  got  him  re- 
turned as  deputy  ;  it  is  she  who  will  carry  him  to  Paris.  Her 
mother,  Madame  Roguin,  is  a  cunning  body,  who  does  what 
she  pleases  with  du  Tillet  the  banker,  one  of  Nucingen's 
chief  allies,  both  of  them  close  friends  of  Keller's;  and  these 
three  houses  do  great  services  to  the  government  or  its  most 
devoted  adherents ;  the  offices  are  on  the  best  possible  terms 
with  these  lynxes  of  the  financial  world,  and  men  like  those 
know  all  Paris.  There  is  nothing  to  hinder  Tiphaine  from 
rising  to  be  the  presiding  judge  of  one  of  the  higher  courts. 
Marry  Rogron  ;  we  will  make  him  deputy  for  Provins  as  soon 
as  I  have  secured  for  myself  some  other  constituency  in  Seine- 
et-Marne.  Tlien  you  will  have  a  receivership — one  of  those 
places  where  Rogron  will  have  nothing  to  do  but  sign  his 
name.  We  will  stick  to  the  Opposition  if  it  triumphs ;  but  if 
the  Bourbons  remain  in  power,  O  how  gently  we  will  incline 
towards  the  centre  !  Besides,  Rogron  will  not  live  for  ever, 
and  you  can  marry  a  title  by-and-by.  And  then,  if  you  are 
in  a  good  position,  the  Chargebceufs  will  help  us.  Your 
poverty — like  mine — has,  no  doubt,  enabled  you  to  estimate 
what  men  are  worth ;  they  are  to  be  made  use  of  only  as 
post-horses.  A  man  or  a  woman  can  take  us  from  one  stage 
to  the  next!  " 

Vinet  had  made  a  little  Catherine  de  Medici  of  Bathilde. 
He  left  his  wife  at  home,  happy  with  her  two  children,  and 
always  attended  Madame  de  Chargeboeuf  and  Bathilde  to  the 
Rogrons.  He  appeared  in  all  his  glory  as  the  tribune  of 
Champagne.  He  wore  neat  gold  spectacles,  a  silk  waistcoat, 
a  white  cravat,  black  trousers,  thin  boots,  a  black  coat  made 
in  Paris,  a  gold  watch  and  chain.  Instead  of  the  Vinet  of 
old — pale,  lean,  haggard,  and  gloomy — he  exhibited  the 
Vinet  of  the  day,  in  all  the  bravery  of  a  political  personage ; 
sure  of  his  luck,  he  trod  with  the  decision  peculiar  to  a  busy 
advocate  familiar  with   the  caverns  of  justice.     His  small, 


-PUT   HER    PRETTV  FOOT    ON    THE   BAR  CF 
THE  FENDER, 


PIERRETTE.  107 

cunning  head  was  so  smartly  brushed,  and  his  clean-shaven 
chin  gave  him  such  a  finished  though  cold  appearance,  that  he 
looked  quite  pleasing,  in  the  style  of  Robespierre.  He  might 
certainly  become  a  delightful  public  prosecutor,  with  an  elas- 
tic, dangerous,  and  deadly  flow  of  eloquence,  or  an  orator, 
with  all  the  subtlety  of  Benjamin  Constant.  The  acrimony 
and  hatred  which  had  formerly  animated  him  had  turned  to 
perfidious  softness.     The  poison  had  become  medicine. 

"Good-evening,  my  dear,  how  are  you?"  said  Madame 
de  Chargeboeuf  to  Sylvie. 

Bathilde  went  straight  to  the  fireplace,  took  off  her  hat, 
looked  at  herself  in  the  glass,  and  put  her  pretty  foot  on  the 
bar  of  the  fender  to  display  it  to  Rogron. 

"What  ails  you,  monsieur?"  said  she,  looking  at  him. 
"You  give  me  no  greeting?  Well,  indeed  !  I  may  put  on  a 
velvet  frock  for  your  benefit " 

She  stopped  Pierrette,  bidding  her  put  her  hat  on  a  chair, 
and  the  girl  took  it  from  her,  Bathilde  resigning  it  to  her  as 
though  Pierrette  had  been  the  housemaid. 

Men  are  thought  very  fierce,  and  so  are  tigers ;  but  neither 
tigers,  nor  vipers,  nor  diplomats,  nor  men  of  law,  nor  execu- 
tioners, nor  kings,  can  in  their  utmost  atrocities  come  near 
the  gentle  cruelty,  the  poisoned  sweetness,  the  savage  scorn 
of  young  ladies  to  each  other  when  certain  of  them  think 
themselves  superior  to  others  in  birth,  fortune,  or  grace,  and 
when  marriage  is  in  question,  or  precedence,  or,  in  short,  any 
feminine  rivalry.  The  "Thank  you,  mademoiselle,"  spoken 
by  Bathilde  to  Pierrette,  was  a  poem  in  twelve  cantos. 

Her  name  was  Bathilde,  the  other's  was  Pierrette ;  she  was  a 
Chargeboeuf,  the  other  a  Lorrain  !  Pierrette  was  undersized 
and  fragile,  Bathilde  was  tall  and  full  of  vitality!  Pierrette 
was  fed  by  charity,  Bathilde  and  her  mother  lived  on  their 
own  money  !  Pierrette  wore  a  stuff  frock  with  a  deep  tucker, 
Bathilde  dragged  the  serpentine  folds  of  her  blue  velvet  i 
Bathilde  had  the  finest  shoulders  in  the  department  and  an 


108  THE   CELIBATES. 

arm  like  a  queen's,  Pierrette's  shoulder-blades  and  arms  were 
skinny ;  Pierrette  was  Cinderella,  Bathilde  the  fairy ;  Bathilde 
would  get  married,  Pierrette  would  die  a  maid  !  Bathilde  was 
worshiped,  Pierrette  had  no  one  to  love  her !  Bathilde  had 
her  hair  dressed — she  had  taste;  Pierrette  hid  her  hair  under 
a  little  cap,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  fashions !  Epilogue — 
Bathilde  was  everything,  Pierrette  was  nothing.  The  proud 
little  Bretonne  perfectly  understood  this  cruel  poem. 

"Good-evening,  child,"  said  Madame  de  Chargebceuf  from 
the  summit  of  her  grandeur,  and  with  an  accent  given  by  her 
narrow-pinched  nose. 

Vinet  put  the  crowning  touch  to  these  insulting  civilities  by 
looking  at  Pierrette  and  saying,  on  three  notes,  "Oh,  oh, 
oh  !     How  fine  we  are  this  evening,  Pierrette  !  " 

"  I !  "  said  the  poor  child.  "  You  should  say  that  to  your 
cousin,  not  to  me.     She  is  beautiful !  " 

"Oh,  my  cousin  is  always  beautiful,"  replied  the  lawyer. 
*'  Do  you  not  say  so,  Pere  Rogron?"  he  added,  turning  to 
the  master  of  the  house,  and  shaking  hands  with  him. 

"Yes,"  said  Rogron. 

"Why  force  him  to  say  what  he  does  not  think?  I  never 
was  to  his  taste,"  replied  Bathilde,  placing  herself  in  front  of 
Rogron.     "  Is  not  that  the  truth  ?     Look  at  me." 

Rogron  looked  at  her  from  head  to  foot,  and  gently  closed 
his  eyes,  like  a  cat  when  its  poll  is  scratched. 

"  You  are  too  beautiful,"  said  he,  "  too  dangerous  to  look 
at." 

"Why?" 

Rogron  gazed  at  the  fire-logs  and  said  nothing. 

At  this  moment  Mademoiselle  Habert  came,  followed  by 
the  colonel.  Celeste  Habert,  everybody's  enemy  now,  had 
none  but  Sylvie  on  her  side ;  but  each  one  showed  her  all  the 
greater  consideration,  politeness,  and  amiable  attention  be- 
cause all  were  undermining  her,  so  that  she  doubted  between 
this  display  of  civil  interest  and  the  distrust  which  her  brother 


PIERRETTE.  109 

had  implanted  in  her.  The  priest,  though  standing  apart 
from  the  theatre  of  war,  guessed  everything ;  and  so,  when 
he  perceived  that  his  sister's  hopes  were  at  an  end,  he  became 
one  of  the  Rogrons'  most  formidable  antagonists. 

The  reader  can  at  once  imagine  what  Mademoiselle  Habert 
was  like  on  being  told  that  even  if  she  had  not  been  mistress 
— arch-mistress — of  a  school,  she  would  still  always  have 
looked  like  a  governess.  Governesses  have  a  particular  way 
of  putting  on  their  caps.  Just  as  elderly  Englishwomen  have 
monopolized  the  fashion  of  turbans,  so  governesses  have  the 
monopoly  of  these  caps ;  the  crown  of  the  cap  towers  above 
the  flowers,  the  flowers  are  more  than  artificial ;  stored  care- 
fully in  a  wardrobe,  this  cap  is  always  new  and  always  old, 
even  on  the  first  day.  These  old  maids  make  it  a  point  of 
honor  to  be  like  a  painter's  lay-figure ;  they  sit  on  their 
haunches,  not  on  their  chairs.  When  they  are  spoken  to  they 
turn  their  whole  body ;  and  when  their  gowns  creak,  we  are 
tempted  to  believe  that  the  springs  of  the  machinery  are  out 
of  order.  Mademoiselle  Habert,  a  type  of  her  kind,  had  a 
hard  eye,  a  set  mouth,  and  under  her  chin,  furrowed  with 
wrinkles,  the  limp  and  crumpled  cap-strings  wagged  and 
frisked  as  she  moved.  She  had  an  added  charm  in  two 
moles,  rather  large  and  rather  brown,  with  hairs  that  she  left 
to  grow  like  untied  clematis.  Finally,  she  took  snufF,  and 
without  grace. 

They  sat  down  to  the  toil  of  boston.  Sylvie  had  opposite 
to  her  Mademoiselle  Habert,  and  the  colonel  sat  on  one  side, 
opposite  Madame  de  Chargeboeuf,  Bathilde  placed  herself 
near  her  mother  and  Rogron.  Sylvie  put  Pierrette  between 
herself  and  the  colonel.  Rogron  opened  another  card-table 
in  case  Monsieur  Neraud  should  come,  and  Monsieur  Cour- 
nant  and  his  wife.  Vinet  and  Bathilde  could  both  play 
whist,  which  was  Monsieur  and  Madame  Cournant's  game. 
Ever  since  the  Chargeboeuf  ladies — as  they  say  in  Provins — 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  coming  to  the  Rogrons,  the  two 


110  THE   CELIBATES. 

lamps  blazed  on  the  chimney-piece  between  the  candelabra 
and  the  clock,  and  the  tables  were  lighted  by  wax-lights  at 
two  francs  a  pound,  which,  however,  were  paid  for  by  win- 
nings at  cards. 

"  Now,  Pierrette,  my  child,  take  your  sewing,"  said  Sylvie 
with  treacherous  gentleness,  seeing  her  watch  the  colonel's 
play. 

In  public  she  always  pretended  to  treat  Pierrette  very 
kindly.  This  mean  deceit  irritated  the  honest  Bretonne, 
and  made  her  despise  her  cousin.  Pierrette  fetched  her 
embrodiery  ;  but  as  she  set  the  stitches,  she  looked  now  and 
then  at  the  colonel's  game.  Gouraud  seemed  not  to  know 
that  there  was  a  little  girl  at  his  side.  Sylvie  began  to  think 
this  indifference  extremely  suspicious.  At  a  certain  moment 
in  the  game  the  old  maid  declared  misere  in  hearts ;  the  pool 
was  full  of  counters,  and  there  were  twenty-seven  sous  in  it 
besides.  The  Cournants  and  Neraud  had  come.  The  old 
supernumerary  judge,  Desfondrilles — a  man  in  whom  the 
minister  of  justice  had  discerned  the  qualifications  for  a  judge 
when  appointing  him  examining  magistrate,  but  who  was 
never  thought  clever  enough  for  a  superior  position — had  for 
the  last  two  months  forsaken  the  Tiphaines  and  shown  a 
leaning  towards  Vinet's  party.  He  was  now  standing  in 
front  of  the  fire,  holding  up  his  coat-tails,  and  gazing  at  the 
gorgeous  drawing-room  in  which  Mademoiselle  de  Charge- 
boeuf  shone ;  for  the  setting  of  crimson  looked  as  if  it  had 
been  contrived  on  purpose  to  show  off  the  beauty  of  this 
magnificent  young  woman.  Silence  reigned ;  Pierrette 
watched  the  play,  and  Sylvie' s  attention  was  diverted  by  the 
excitement  of  the  game. 

"  Play  that,"  said  Pierrette  to  the  colonel,  pointing  to  a 
heart. 

The  colonel  led  from  a  sequence  in  hearts ;  the  hearts  lay 
between  him  and  Sylvie;  the  colonel  forced  the  ace,  though 
it  was  guarded  in  Sylvie's  hand  by  five  small  cards. 


PIERRETTE.  Ill 

"  It  is  not  fair  play !  Pierrette  saw  my  hand,  and  the 
colonel  allowed  her  to  advise  him  !  " 

"But,  mademoiselle,"  said  Celeste,  "  it  was  the  colonel's 
game  to  lead  hearts  since  he  found  that  you  had  one  !  " 

The  speech  made  Desfondrilles  smile ;  he  was  a  keen  ob- 
server, who  amused  himself  with  watching  all  the  interests  at 
stake  in  Provins,  where  he  played  the  part  of  "  Rigaudin  "  in 
Picard's  play  of  "La  Maison  en  Loterie." 

"It  was  the  colonel's  game,"  Cournant  put  in,  without 
knowing  anything  about  it. 

Sylvie  shot  at  MademoiseUe  Habert  a  look  of  old  maid 
against  old  maid,  villainous  but  honeyed. 

"  Pierrette,  you  saw  my  hand,"  said  Sylvie,  fixing  her  eyes 
on  the  girl. 

"  No,  cousin." 

"I  was  watching  you  all,"  said  the  archaeological  judge; 
"  I  can  bear  witness  that  the  little  girl  saw  no  one's  hand  but 
the  colonel's." 

"Pooh!  these  little  girls  know  very  well  how  to  steal  a 
glance  with  their  sweet  eyes,"  said  Gouraud  in  alarm. 

"  Indeed  !  "  said  Sylvie. 

"Yes,"  replied  Gouraud;  "she  may  have  looked  over 
your  hand  to  play  you  a  trick.     Was  it  not  so,  my  beauty?" 

"No,"  said  the  honest  Bretonne.  "I  am  incapable  of 
such  a  thing  !  In  that  case  I  should  have  followed  my  cousin's 
game." 

"  You  know  very  well  that  you  are  a  story-teller  and  a  little 
fool  into  the  bargain,"  said  Sylvie.  "  Since  what  took  place 
this  morning,  who  can  believe  a  word  you  may  say?  You 
are  a " 

Pierrette  did  not  wait  to  hear  her  cousin  end  the  sentence 
in  her  presence.  Anticipating  a  torrent  of  abuse,  she  rose, 
went  out  of  the  room  without  a  light,  and  up  to  her  room. 
Sylvie  turned  pale  with  rage,  and  muttered  between  her  teeth, 
*'  I  will  pay  her  out !  " 


112  THE   CELIBATES. 

"  Will  you  pay  your  losses?  "  said  Madame  de  Chargeboeuf. 

At  this  moment  poor  Pierrette  hit  her  head  against  the 
passage  door  which  the  judge  had  left  open. 

"  Good!     That  serves  her  right !  "  cried  Sylvia. 

"  What  has  happened?  "  asked  Desfondrilles. 

**  Nothing  that  she  does  not  deserve,"  replied  Sylvia. 

**  She  has  given  herself  some  severe  blow,"  said  Mademoi- 
selle Habert. 

Sylvie  tried  to  evade  paying  her  stakes  by  rising  to  see 
what  Pierrette  had  done ;  but  Madame  de  Chargeboeuf  stopped 
her. 

"Pay  us  first,"  said  she,  laughing;  "by  the  time  you  re- 
turn you  will  have  forgotten  all  about  it." 

This  suggestion,  based  on  the  bad  faith  the  ex-haberdasher 
showed  in  the  matter  of  her  gambling  debts,  met  with  general 
approval.  Sylvie  sat  down  and  thought  no  more  of  Pierrette ; 
and  no  one  was  surprised  at  her  indifference.  All  the  evening 
Sylvie  was  absent-minded.  When  cards  were  over,  at  about 
half-past  nine,  she  sank  into  an  easy-chair  by  the  fire,  and 
only  rose  to  take  leave  of  her  guests.  The  colonel  tortured 
her ;  she  did  not  know  what  to  think  about  him. 

"  Men  are  so  false !  "  said  she  to  herself  as  she  fell  asleep. 

Pierrette  had  given  herself  a  frightful  blow  against  the  edge 
of  the  door,  just  over  her  ear,  where  girls  part  their  hair  to 
put  the  forepart  into  curl-papers.  Next  morning  there  was  a 
bad  purple-veined  bruise. 

"  God  has  punished  you,"  said  Sylvie  at  breakfast;  "  you 
disobeyed  me,  you  showed  a  great  want  of  respect  in  not 
listening  to  me,  and  in  going  away  in  the  middle  of  my  sen- 
tence. You  have  received  no  more  than  you  have  justly 
deserved. ' * 

**  Still,"  said  Rogron,  **  you  should  put  on  a  rag  dipped  in 
salt  and  water." 

"  Pooh !     It  is  nothing  !  "  said  Sylvie. 


PIERRETTE.  113 

The  poor  child  had  come  to  the  point  when  she  thought 
her  guardian's  remark  a  proof  of  interest. 

The  week  ended  as  it  had  begun,  in  constant  torment. 
Sylvie  became  ingenious,  and  carried  her  refinement  of 
tyranny  to  an  extreme  pitch.  The  Iroquois,  Cherokees,  and 
Mohicans  might  have  learned  of  her.  Pierrette  dared  not 
complain  of  her  misery  and  the  intense  pain  she  suffered 
in  her  head.  At  the  bottom  of  Sylvie's  displeasure  lay  the 
girl's  refusal  to  tell  anything  about  Brigaut;  and  Pierrette, 
with  Breton  obstinacy,  was  determined  to  keep  a  very  natural 
silence.  Every  one  can  imagine  what  a  glance  she  gave 
Brigaut,  who,  as  she  believed,  would  be  lost  to  her  if  he  were 
discovered,  and  whom  she  instinctively  longed  to  keep  near 
her,  happy  in  knowing  that  he  was  at  Provins.  What  a  de- 
light to  her  to  see  Brigaut  again !  The  sight  of  the  com- 
panion of  her  childhood  was  to  her  like  the  view  an  exile 
gets  from  afar  of  his  native  land ;  she  looked  on  him  as  a 
martyr  gazes  at  the  sky  when,  during  his  torments,  his  eyes, 
blessed  with  double  sight,  see  through  to  heaven. 

Pierrette's  parting  glance  had  been  so  perfectly  intelligible 
to  the  major's  son  that,  while  he  planed  his  boards,  opened 
his  compasses,  took  his  measurements,  and  fitted  his  pieces, 
he  racked  his  brains  for  some  means  of  corresponding  with 
Pierrette.  Brigaut  at  last  hit  on  this  extremely  simple  plan. 
At  a  certain  hour  at  night  Pierrette  must  let  down  a  string, 
and  he  would  tie  a  letter  to  the  end  of  it.  In  the  midst  of 
her  terrible  sufferings  from  two  maladies,  an  abscess  which 
was  forming  in  her  head,  and  her  general  disorderment,  Pier- 
rette was  sustained  by  the  idea  of  corresponding  with  Brigaut. 
The  same  desire  agitated  both  hearts;  though  apart,  they 
understood  each  other  !  At  every  pang  that  made  her  heart 
flutter,  at  every  pain  that  shot  through  her  brain,  Pierrette 
said  to  herself,  "Brigaut  is  at  hand  !  "  and  then  she  could 
suffer  without  complaining. 

On  the  next  market-day  after  their  first  meeting  in   the 
8 


114  THE   CELIBATES. 

church,  Brigaut  looked  out  for  his  little  friend.  Though  he 
saw  that  she  was  pale,  and  trembling  like  a  November  leaf 
about  to  drop  from  the  bough,  without  losing  his  head  he 
went  to  bargain  for  some  fruit  at  the  stall  where  the  terrible 
Sylvie  was  beating  down  the  price  of  her  purchases.  Brigaut 
contrived  to  slip  a  note  into  Pierrette's  hand,  and  he  did  it 
naturally,  while  jesting  with  the  market-woman,  and  with  all 
the  dexterity  of  a  rake,  as  if  he  had  never  done  anything  else, 
so  coolly  did  he  manage  it,  in  spite  of  the  hot  blood  that 
sang  in  his  ears  and  surged  boiling  from  his  heart,  almost 
bursting  the  veins  and  arteries.  On  the  surface  he  had  the 
determination  of  an  old  housebreaker,  and  within  the  quaking 
heart  of  innocence,  like  mothers  sometimes  in  their  mortal 
anguish,  when  they  are  gripped  between  two  dangers,  between 
two  precipices.  Pierrette  felt  Brigaut's  dizziness;  she  crushed 
the  paper  into  her  apron  pocket;  the  pallor  of  her  cheeks 
changed  to  the  cherry  redness  of  a  fierce  fire.  These  two 
children  each  unconsciously  went  through  sensations  enough 
for  ten  commonplace  love-affairs.  That  instant  left  in  their 
souls  a  wellspring  of  emotions.  Sylvie,  who  did  not  recog- 
nize the  Breton  accent,  could  not  suspect  a  lover  in  Brigaut, 
and  Pierrette  came  home  with  her  treasure. 

The  letters  of  these  two  poor  children  were  destined  to  serve 
as  documents  in  a  horrible  legal  squabble;  for,  but  for  that 
fatal  circumstance,  they  never  would  have  been  seen.  This 
is  what  Pierrette  read  that  evening  in  the  quiet  seclusion  of 
her  attic  room : 

**  My  dear  Pierrette  : — At  midnight,  when  everybody  is 
asleep,  but  when  I  shall  be  awake  for  your  sake,  I  will  come 
every  night  under  the  kitchen  window.  You  can  let  down 
out  of  your  window  a  string  long  enough  to  reach  me,  which 
will  make  no  noise,  and  tie  to  the  end  of  it  whatever  you 
want  to  write  to  me.  I  will  answer  you  in  the  same  way.  I 
knew  that  jjou  had  been  taught  to  read  and  write  by  those 


PIERRETTE.  115 

wretched  relations  who  were  to  do  you  so  much  good,  and 
who  are  doing  you  so  much  harm  !  You,  Pierrette,  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  colonel  who  died  for  France,  are  compelled  by  these 
monsters  to  cook  for  them  !  That  is  how  your  pretty  color 
and  your  fine  health  have  vanished.  What  has  become  of 
my  Pierrette?  What  have  they  done  to  her?  I  can  see 
plainly  that  you  are  not  happy. 

"Oh!  Pierrette,  let  us  go  back  to  Brittany.  I  can  earn 
enough  to  give  you  everything  you  need ;  you  may  have  three 
francs  a  day,  for  I  earn  from  four  to  five,  and  thirty  sous  are 
plenty  for  me.  Oh  !  Pierrette,  how  I  have  prayed  to  God  for 
you  since  seeing  you  again.  I  have  asked  Him  to  give  me  all 
your  pain,  and  to  grant  you  all  the  pleasures. 

"What  have  you  to  do  with  them  that  they  keep  you? 
Your  grandmother  is  more  to  you  than  they  are.  These 
Rogrons  are  venomous;  they  have  spoiled  all  your  gaiety. 
You  do  not  even  walk  at  Provins  as  you  used  to  move  in 
Brittany.  Let  us  go  home  to  Brittany.  In  short,  here  I  am 
to  serve  you,  to  do  your  bidding  ;  and  you  must  tell  me  what 
you  wish.  If  you  want  money,  I  have  sixty  crowns  of  ours, 
and  I  shall  have  the  grief  of  sending  them  to  you  by  the 
string  instead  of  kissing  your  dear  hands  respectfully  when  I 
give  you  the  money.  Ah  !  my  dear  Pierrette,  the  blue  sky 
has  now  for  a  long  time  been  dark  to  me.  I  have  not  had 
two  hours  of  joy  since  I  put  you  into  that  ill-starred  diligence ; 
and  when  I  saw  you  again,  like  a  shade,  that  witch  of  a  cousin 
disturbed  our  happiness.  However,  we  shall  have  the  comfort 
of  praying  to  God  together  every  Sunday ;  He  will  perhaps 
hear  us  the  better.  Not  good-by,  dear  Pierrette,  only  till 
to-night." 

This  letter  agitated  her  so  greatly  that  she  sat  for  above  an 
hour  reading  and  re-reading  it ;  but  she  reflected,  not  without 
pain,  that  she  had  nothing  to  write  with.  So  she  made  up 
her  mind  to  the  difficult  expedition  from  her  attic  to  the 


116  THE   CELIBATES. 

dining-room,  where  she  could  find  ink,  pen,  and  paper;  and 
she  accomplished  it  without  waking  Sylvie.  A  few  minutes 
before  midnight  she  had  finished  this  letter,  which  was  also 
produced  in  court : 

**  My  Friend  : — Oh,  yes,  my  friend  !  For  there  is  no  one 
but  you,  Jacques,  and  my  grandmother,  who  loves  me.  God 
forgive  me,  but  you  are  the  only  two  persons  I  love,  one  as 
much  as  the  other,  neither  more  nor  less.  I  was  too  little 
to  remember  my  mother ;  but  you,  Jacques,  and  my  grand- 
mother, and  my  grandfather  too,  God  rest  his  soul,  for  he 
suffered  much  from  his  ruin,  which  was  mine  too — in  short, 
you  are  the  only  two  remaining,  and  I  love  you  as  much  as  I 
am  wretched  !  So  to  know  how  much  I  love  you,  you  would 
have  to  know  how  much  I  suffer ;  but  I  do  not  wish  that — it 
would  make  you  too  unhappy.  I  am  spoken  to  as  you  would 
not  speak  to  a  dog ;  I  am  treated  as  if  I  were  dirt ;  and  in 
vain  I  examine  myself  as  if  I  were  before  God,  I  cannot  see 
that  I  am  in  fault  towards  them.  Before  you  sang  the  bride's 
song  to  me  I  saw  that  God  was  good  in  my  misery ;  for  I 
prayed  to  Him  to  take  me  out  of  this  world,  and  as  I  felt 
very  ill,  I  said  to  myself,  '  God  has  heard  me  !  ' 

"  But  since  you  have  come,  Brigaut,  I  want  to  go  away 
with  you  to  Brittany  to  see  my  grandmamma,  who  loves  me, 
though  they  tell  me  she  has  robbed  me  of  eight  thousand 
francs.  Brigaut,  if  they  are  really  mine,  can  you  get  them  ? 
But  it  is  all  a  lie ;  if  we  had  eight  thousand  francs,  grand- 
mamma would  not  be  at  Saint- Jacques.  I  would  not  trouble 
that  good  saintly  woman's  last  days  by  telling  her  of  my 
miseries ;  it  would  be  enough  to  kill  her.  Ah  !  if  she  could 
know  that  they  make  her  grandchild  wash  the  pots  and  pans 
— she  who  would  say  to  me,  'Leave  that  alone,  my  darling,' 
when  I  tried  to  help  her  in  her  troubles ;  *  leave  it,  leave  it, 
my  pet;  you  will  spoil  your  pretty  little  hands.'  Well,  my 
nails  are  clean  at  any  rate  !     Many  times  I  cannot  carry  the 


PIERRETTE.  117 

market  basket,  and  the  handle  saws  my  arm  as  I  come  home 
from  market. 

"  At  the  same  time,  I  do  not  think  that  my  cousins  are 
cruel ;  but  it  is  their  way  always  to  be  scolding,  and  it  would 
seem  that  I  can  never  get  away  from  them.  My  cousin 
Rogron  is  my  guardian.  One  day  when  I  meant  to  run  away, 
as  I  was  too  miserable,  and  I  told  them  so,  my  cousin  Sylvie 
answered  that  the  police  would  go  after  me,  that  the  law  was 
on  my  guardian's  side ;  and  I  saw  very  clearly  that  cousins 
can  no  more  take  the  place  of  our  father  and  mother  than  the 
saints  can  take  the  place  of  God.  My  poor  Jacques,  what 
use  could  I  make  of  your  money  ?  Keep  it  for  our  journey. 
Oh  !  how  I  have  thought  of  you  and  Pen-Hoel  and  the  large 
pool.  We  ate  our  cake  first,  out  there.  I  think  that  I  am 
getting  worse.  I  am  very  ill,  Jacques.  I  have  such  pains  in 
my  head  that  I  could  scream,  and  in  my  back  and  my  bones  j 
something  round  my  loins  that  half  kills  me;  and  I  have  no 
appetite  but  for  nasty  things,  leaves  and  roots,  and  I  like  the 
smell  of  printed  paper.  There  are  times  when  I  should  cry 
if  I  were  alone,  for  I  may  not  do  anything  as  I  wish ;  I  am 
not  even  allowed  to  cry.  I  have  to  hide  myself  to  offer  up 
my  tears  to  Him  from  whom  we  receive  those  mercies  which 
we  call  our  afflictions.  Was  it  not  He  who  inspired  you  with 
the  good  idea  of  coming  to  sing  the  bride's  song  under  my 
window?  Oh!  Jacques,  cousin  Sylvie,, who  heard  you,  told 
me  I  had  a  lover.  If  you  will  be  my  lover,  love  me  very 
much  ;  I  promise  always  to  love  you,  as  in  the  past,  and  to  be 
your  faithful  servant, 

"  Pierrette  Lorrain. 

"  You  will  always  love  me,  won't  you?  " 

The  girl  had  taken  a  crust  of  bread  from  the  kitchen,  in 
which  she  made  a  hole  to  stick  her  letter  in,  so  as  to  weight 
the  thread.     At  midnight,  after  opening  her  window  with 


118  THE  CELIBATES. 

excessive  caution,  she  let  down  her  note  with  the  bread, 
which  could  make  no  noise  by  tapping  against  the  wall  or  the 
shutters.  She  felt  the  thread  pulled  by  Brigaut,  who  broke 
it,  and  then  went  stealthily  away.  When  he  was  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  square  she  could  see  him,  though  indistinctly,  in 
the  starlight ;  but  he  could  gaze  at  her  in  the  luminous  band 
projected  by  the  candle.  The  two  young  things  remained 
there  for  an  hour,  Pierrette  signaling  to  him  to  go  away,  he 
going  and  she  remaining,  and  he  returning  to  his  post,  while 
Pierrette  again  waved  to  him  to  be  gone.  This  was  several 
times  repeated,  till  the  girl  shut  her  window,  got  into  bed, 
and  blew  out  her  light. 

Once  in  bed,  she  went  to  sleep,  happy  though  suffering; 
she  had  Brigaut's  letter  under  her  pillow.  She  slept  the  sleep 
of  the  persecuted,  a  sleep  blessed  by  the  angels,  the  sleep  of 
golden  and  far-away  glories  full  of  the  arabesques  of  heaven, 
which  Raphg,el  dreamed  of  and  drew. 

Her  delicate  physical  nature  was  so  responsive  to  her  moral 
nature  that  Pierrette  rose  next  morning  as  glad  and  light  as  a 
lark,  beaming  and  gay.  Such  a  change  could  not  escape 
Sylvie's  eye ;  this  time,  instead  of  scolding  her,  slie  pro- 
ceeded to  watch  her  with  the  cunning  of  a  raven. 

"  What  makes  her  so  happy?  "  was  suggested  by  jealousy, 
and  not  by  tyranny.  If  Sylvie  had  not  been  possessed  by 
the  idea  of  the  colonel,  she  would  certainly  have  said  as 
usual,  "  Pierrette,  you  are  very  turbulent,  or  very  heedless  of 
what  is  said  to  you."  The  old  maid  determined  to  spy  on 
Pierrette,  as  only  old  maids  can  spy.  The  day  passed  in 
gloom  and  silence,  like  the  hour  before  a  storm. 

"So  you  are  no  longer  so  ailing,  miss?"  said  Sylvie  at 
dinner.  "  Did  I  not  tell  you  that  she  shams  it  all  to  worry 
us?"  she  exclaimed,  turning  to  her  brother,  without  waiting 
for  Pierrette's  reply. 

**  On  the  contrary,  cousin,  I  have  a  sort  of  fever,"  said  the 
distressed  child. 


PIERRETTE.  119 

"What  sort  of  fever.  You  are  as  gay  as  a  linnet.  You 
have  seen  someone  again,  perhaps?" 

Pierrette  shuddered,  and  kept  her  eyes  on  her  plate. 

''Tartufer'  cried  Sylvie.  "At  fourteen  !  Already!  What 
a  nature  !  Why,  you  will  be  a  wretch  indeed  ! ' ' 

"  I  do  not  know  what  you  mean,"  replied  Pierrette,  raising 
her  fine  luminous  hazel  eyes  to  her  cousin's  face. 

"This  evening,"  said  Sylvie,  "you  will  remain  in  the 
dining-room  to  sew  by  a  candle.  You  are  in  the  way  in  the 
drawing-room,  and  I  will  not  have  you  looking  over  my  hand 
to  advise  your  favorites." 

Pierrette  did  not  flinch. 

"  Hypocrite  !  "  exclaimed  Sylvie  as  she  left  the  room. 

Rogron,  who  could  not  understand  what  his  sister  was 
talking  about,  said  to  Pierrette,  "  What  is  the  matter  between 
you  two  ?  Try,  Pierrette,  to  please  your  cousin  ;  she  is  most 
indulgent,  most  kind ;  and  if  she  is  put  out  with  you,  cer- 
tainly you  must  be  wrong.  Why  do  you  squabble  ?  For  *ny 
part,  I  like  a  quiet  life.  Look  at  Mademoiselle  Bathilde  ;  you 
should  try  to  copy  her." 

Pierrette  could  bear  it  all ;  Brigaut  would  come,  beyond 
doubt,  at  midnight  to  bring  his  answer,  and  this  hope  was 
her  viaticum  for  the  day.  But  she  was  exhausting  her  last 
strength.  She  did  not  go  to  sleep ;  she  sat  up  listening  to 
the  clocks  strike  the  hours,  and  fearing  to  make  a  sound.  At 
last  twelve  struck ;  she  softly  opened  her  window,  and  this 
time  she  used  a  string  she  had  made  long  enough  by  tying 
several  bits  together.  She  heard  Brigaut's  step,  and  when  she 
drew  up  the  string  she  read  the  following  letter,  which  filled 
her  with  joy : 

"  My  dear  Pierrette: — If  you  are  in  such  pain,  you  must 
not  tire  yourself  by  sitting  up  for  me.  You  will  be  sure  to 
hear  me  call  like  a  *  Chouan.'  My  father  luckily  taught  me 
to  imitate  their  cry.     So  I  shall  repeat  it  three  times,  and 


120  THE   CELIBATES. 

you  will  know  that  I  have  come,  and  that  you  must  let  down 
the  string,  but  I  shall  not  come  again  for  some  few  days.  I  hope 
then  to  have  good  news  for  you.  Oh  !  Pierrette,  not  death  ! 
What  are  you  thinking  of?  All  my  heart  quaked;  I  thought 
I  was  dead  myself  at  the  mere  idea.  No,  my  Pierrette,  you 
shall  not  die  ;  you  shall  live  happy,  and  soon  be  rescued  from 
your  persecutors.  If  I  should  not  succeed  in  what  I  am 
attempting,  to  save  you,  I  would  go  to  the  lawyers  and  declare 
in  the  face  of  heaven  and  earth  how  you  are  treated  by  your 
cruel  relations. 

"I  am  certain  that  you  have  only  to  endure  a  few  days 
more ;  have  patience.  Pierrette,  Brigaut  is  watching  over 
you,  as  he  did  in  the  days  when  we  went  to  slide  on  the  pond, 
and  I  pulled  you  out  of  the  deep  hole  where  we  were  so 
nearly  lost  together.  Good-by,  my  dear  Pierrette ;  in  a  few 
days  we  shall  be  happy,  please  God.  Alas !  I  dare  not  tell 
you  of  the  only  thing  that  may  hinder  our  meeting.  But 
God  loves  us  !  So  in  a  few  days  I  shall  be  able  to  see  my 
dear  Pierrette  in  liberty,  without  a  care,  without  any  one 
hindering  my  looking  at  you,  for  I  am  very  hungry  to  see 
you,  Oh  Pierrette  !  Pierrette,  who  condescends  to  love  me 
and  to  tell  me  so.  Yes,  Pierrette,  I  will  be  your  lover,  but 
only  when  I  have  earned  the  grand  fortune  you  deserve,  and 
till  then  I  will  be  no  more  to  you  than  a  devoted  servant 
whom  you  may  command.     Adieu. 

**  Jacques  Brigaut." 

This  was  what  the  young  fellow  did  not  tell  Pierrette.  He 
had  written  the  following  letter  to  Madame  Lorrain  at  Nantes : 

"  Madame  Lorrain  : — Your  granddaughter  will  die,  killed 
by  ill-usage,  if  you  do  not  come  to  claim  her  back.  I  hardly 
knew  her  again  ;  and  to  enable  you  to  judge  for  yourself  of 
the  state  of  things,  I  enclose  in  this  letter  one  from  Pierrette 
to  me.  You  are  reported  here  to  have  your  grandchild's 
fortune,  and  you  ought  to  justify  yourself  on  this  point.     In 


PIERRETTE.  121 

short,  if  you  can,  come  quickly ;  we  may  yet  be  happy,  or 
later  you  will  find  Pierrette  dead. 

"  I  remain,  with  respect,  your  humble  servant, 

"Jacques  Brigaut. 

"  At  Monsieur  Frappier's,  master  joiner,  Grand'  Rue, 
Provins." 

Brigaut  only  feared  lest  Pierrette's  grandmother  might  be 
dead. 

Though  this  letter  from  him,  whom  in  her  innocence  she 
called  her  lover,  was  almost  inexplicable  to  Pierrette,  she 
accepted  it  with  virgin  faith.  Her  heart  experienced  the 
feeling  which  travelers  in  the  desert  know  when  they  see 
from  afar  the  palm  grove  round  a  well.  In  a  few  days  her 
miseries  would  be  ended,  Brigaut  said  it;  she  slept  on  the 
promise  of  her  childhood's  friend ;  and  yet,  as  she  laid  this 
letter  with  the  former  one,  a  dreadful  thought  found  dreadful 
expression — 

"Poor  Brigaut,"  said  she  to  herself,  "he  does  not  know 
the  hole  I  have  my  feet  in  !  " 

Sylvie  had  heard  Pierrette ;  she  had  also  heard  Brigaut 
below  the  window ;  she  sprang  up,  rushed  to  look  out  on  the 
square  through  the  shutter  slats,  and  saw  a  man  going  away 
towards  the  house  where  the  colonel  lived.  In  front  of  that 
Brigaut  stopped.  The  old  maid  gently  opened  her  door, 
went  upstairs,  was  amazed  at  seeing  a  light  in  Pierrette's 
room,  peeped  through  the  keyhole,  and  could  see  nothing. 

"Pierrette,"  said  she,  "  are  you  ill?" 

"No,  cousin,"  said  Pierrette,  startled. 

"  Then  why  have  you  a  light  in  your  room  at  midnight  ? 
Open  your  door.     I  must  know  what  you  are  about." 

Pierrette,  barefoot,  opened  the  door,  and  Sylvie  saw  the 
skein  of  twine  which  Pierrette,  never  dreaming  of  being 
caught,  had  neglected  to  put  away.       Sylvie  pounced  upon  it. 

"  What  do  you  use  that  for?  "    . 


122  THE   CELIBATES. 

"Nothing,  cousin." 

"  Nothing  !"  said  she.  "  Very  good.  Lies  again  !  You 
will  not  find  that  the  way  to  heaven.  Go  to  bed ;  you  are 
cold." 

She  asked  no  more,  but  disappeared,  leaving  Pierrette 
terror-stricken  by  such  leniency.  Instead  of  an  outbreak, 
Sylvie  had  suddenly  made  up  her  mind  to  steal  a  march  on 
the  colonel  and  Pierrette,  to  possess  herself  of  the  letters,  and 
confound  the  couple  who  were  deceiving  her.  Pierrette,  in- 
spired by  danger,  put  the  two  letters  inside  her  stays  and 
covered  them  with  calico. 

This  was  the  end  of  the  loves  of  Pierrette  and  Brigaut. 

Pierrette  was  glad  of  her  friend's  decision,  for  Sylvie's 
suspicions  would  be  disconcerted  by  having  nothing  to  feed 
on.  And,  in  fact,  Sylvie  spent  three  nights  out  of  her  bed 
and  three  evenings  in  watching  the  innocent  colonel,  without 
discovering  anything  in  Pierrette's  room,  or  in  the  house  or 
out  of  it,  that  hinted  at  their  having  any  understanding. 
She  sent  Pierrette  to  confession,  and  look  advantage  of  her 
absence  to  hunt  through  everything  in  the  child's  room  as 
dexterously  and  as  keenly  as  the  spies  and  searchers  at  the 
gates  of  Paris.  She  found  nothing.  Her  rage  rose  to  the 
climax  of  human  passion.  If  Pierrette  had  been  present,  she 
would  certainly  have  beaten  her  without  ruth.  To  a  woman 
of  this  temper,  jealousy  was  not  so  much  a  feeling  as  a  pos- 
session ;  she  breathed,  she  felt  her  heart  beat,  she  had  emo- 
tions in  a  way  hitherto  completely  unknown  to  her ;  at  the 
least  movement  she  was  on  the  alert,  she  listened  to  the 
faintest  sounds,  she  watched  Pierrette  with  gloomy  concen- 
tration. 

"That  little  wretch  will  be  the  death  of  me  !  "  she  would 
say. 

Sylvie's  severity  to  the  child  became  at  last  the  most  refined 
cruelty,  and  aggravated  the  miserable  state  in  which  Pierrette 


PIERRETTE.  123 

lived.  The  poor  little  thing  was  constantly  in  a  fever,  and 
the  pain  in  her  head  became  intolerable.  By  the  end  of  a 
week  she  displayed  to  the  frequenters  of  the  Rogrons'  house 
a  face  of  suffering  which  must  certainly  have  softened  any  less 
cruel  egotism ;  but  Doctor  Neraud,  advised  perhaps  by  Vinet, 
did  not  call  for  more  than  a  week.  The  colonel,  suspected 
by  Sylvie,  was  afraid  she  might  break  off  their  marriage  if 
he  showed  the  smallest  anxiety  about  Pierrette;  Bathilde 
accounted  for  her  indisposition  by  simple  causes,  in  no  way 
dangerous. 

At  last,  one  Sunday  evening,  when  the  drawing-room  was 
full  of  company,  Pierrette  could  not  endure  the  pain  ;  she 
fainted  completely  away ;  and  the  colonel,  who  was  the  first 
to  observe  that  she  had  lost  consciousness,  lifted  her  up  and 
carried  her  to  a  sofa. 

"She  did  it  on  purpose,"  said  Sylvie,  looking  at  Made- 
moiselle Habert  and  the  other  players. 

**  Your  cousin  is  very  ill,  I  assure  you,"  said  the  colonel. 
"She  was  very  well  in  your  arms,"  retorted  Sylvie,  with  a 
hideous  smile. 

"The  colonel  is  right,"  said  Madame  de  Chargeboeuf; 
"  you  ought  to  send  for  a  doctor.  This  morning  in  church 
every  one  was  talking  of  Mademoiselle  Lorrain's  state  as  they 
came  out — it  is  obvious." 

"  I  am  dying,"  said  Pierrette. 

Desfondrilles  called  to  Sylvie  to  unfasten  the  girl's  frock. 
Sylvie  complied,  saying,  "  It  is  all  a  sham  !  " 

She  nndid  the  dress,  and  was  going  to  loosen  the  stays. 
Then  Pierrette  found  superhuman  strength  ;  she  sat  up,  and 
exclaimed,  "  No,  no  ;  I  will  go  to  bed." 

Sylvie  had  touched  her  stays,  and  had  felt  the  papers.  She 
allowed  Pierrette  to  escape,  saying  to  everybody,  "Well,  do 
you  think  she  is  so  very  ill  ?  It  is  all  put  on ;  you  could 
never  imagine  the  naughtiness  of  that  child." 

She  detained  Vinet  at  the  end  of  the  evening  \  she  was 


124  THE   CELIBATES. 

furious,  she  was  bent  on  revenge;  she  was  rough  with  the 
colonel  as  he  bid  her  good-night.  Gouraud  shot  a  glance  at 
Vinet  that  seemed  to  pierce  him  to  the  very  bowels,  and 
mark  the  spot  for  a  bullet.  Sylvie  begged  Vinet  to  remain. 
When  they  were  alone,  the  old  maid  began — 

"Never  in  my  life,  nor  in  all  my  days,  will  I  marry  the 
colonel !  " 

"  Now  that  you  have  made  up  your  mind,  I  may  speak. 
The  colonel  is  my  friend ;  still,  I  am  yours  rather  than  his. 
Rogron  has  done  me  services  I  can  never  forget.  I  am  as 
firm  a  friend  as  I  am  an  implacable  enemy.  Certainly,  when 
once  I  am  in  the  Chamber  you  will  see  how  I  shall  rise,  and 
I  will  make  Rogron  a  receiver-general.  Well,  swear  to  me 
never  to  repeat  a  word  of  our  conversation  !  "  Sylvie  nodded 
assent.  "In  the  first  place,  our  gallant  colonel  is  an  invet- 
erate gambler." 

**  Indeed  !  "  said  Sylvie. 

"But  for  the  difficulties  this  passion  has  gotten  him  into, 
he  might  perhaps  have  been  a  marshal  of  France,"  the  lawyer 
went  on.  "  So  he  might  squander  all  your  fortune.  But  he 
is  a  deep  customer.  Do  not  believe  that  married  people  have 
or  have  not  children,  and  you  know  what  will  happen  to  you. 
No.  If  you  wish  to  marry,  wait  till  I  am  in  the  Chamber, 
and  then  you  can  marry  old  Desfondrilles,  who  will  be  presi- 
dent of  the  court  here.  To  revenge  yourself,  make  your 
brother  marry  Mademoiselle  de  Chargeboeuf ;  I  will  undertake 
to  get  her  consent ;  she  will  have  two  thousand  francs  a  year, 
and  you  will  be  as  nearly  connected  with  the  Chargeboeufs  as 
I  am.  Take  my  word  for  it,  the  Chargeboeufs  will  call  us 
cousins  some  day." 

"Gouraud  is  in  love  with  Pierrette,"  replied  Sylvie. 

"  He  is  quite  capable  of  it,"  said  Vinet ;  "  and  quite  capa- 
ble of  marrying  her  after  your  death." 

"  A  pretty  little  scheme  !  "  said  she, 

"  I  tell  you,  he  is  as  cunning  as  the  devil.     Make  your 


PIERRETTE.  125 

brother  marry,  and  announce  that  you  intend  to  remain  un- 
married and  leave  your  money  to  your  nephews  or  nieces ; 
you  will  thus  hit  Pierrette  and  Gouraud  by  the  same  blow, 
and  you  will  see  how  foolish  he  will  look." 

"To  be  sure,"  cried  the  old  maid;  "I  can  catch  them. 
She  shall  go  into  a  store,  and  will  have  nothing.  She  has  not 
a  penny.     Let  her  do  as  we  did,  and  work." 

Vinet  having  got  his  idea  into  Sylvie's  head,  and  knowing' 
her  obstinacy,  left  the  house.  The  old  maid  ended  by  think- 
ing that  the  plan  was  her  own. 

Vinet  found  the  colonel  outside,  smoking  a  cigar  while  he 
waited  for  him. 

"  Hold  hard  !  "  said  the  colonel.  "You  have  pulled  me  to 
pieces,  but  there  are  stones  enough  in  the  ruins  to  bury  you." 

"Colonel!" 

"There  is  no  'colonel'  in  the  case.  I  am  going  to  lead 
you  a  dance.    In  the  first  place,  you  will  never  be  deputy '* 

"Colonel!" 

"  I  can  surely  command  ten  votes,  and  the  election  depends 
on 

"  Colonel,  just  listen  to  me.  Is  there  no  one  in  the  world 
but  old  Sylvie  ?  I  have  just  been  trying  to  clear  you.  You 
are  accused  and  proved  guilty  of  writing  to  Pierrette;  she 
has  seen  you  coming  out  of  your  house  at  midnight  to  stand 
below  the  girl's  window " 

"  Well  imagined  !  " 

"  She  means  her  brother  to  marry  Bathilde,  and  will  keep 
her  fortune  for  their  children." 

"Will  Rogron  have  any?" 

"Yes,"  said  Vinet.  "But  I  promise  to  find  you  a  young 
and  agreeable  woman  with  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs. 
Are  you  mad?  Can  you  and  I  afford  to  quarrel?  Things 
have  turned  against  you  in  spite  of  me ;  but  you  do  not 
know  me." 

"Well,  we  must  learn   to  knov/  each  other,"  replied  the 


126  THE  CELIBATES, 

colonel.  "  Get  me  a  wife  with  fifty  thousand  crowns  before 
the  elections — otherwise,  your  servant.  I  do  not  like  awk- 
ward bed-fellows,  and  you  have  pulled  all  the  blankets  to  your 
side.     Good-night." 

**You  will  see,"  said  Vinet,  shaking  hands  affectionately 
with  the  colonel. 

At  about  one  in  the  morning  three  clear,  low  hoots,  like 
those  of  an  owl,  admirably  mimicked,  sounded  in  the  piazza ; 
Pierrette  heard  them  in  her  fevered  sleep.  She  got  up,  quite 
damp,  opened  her  window,  saw  Brigaut,  and  threw  out  a  ball 
of  silk,  to  which  he  tied  a  letter. 

Sylvie,  excited  by  the  events  of  the  evening  and  her  own 
deliberations,  was  not  asleep  ;  she  was  taken  in  by  the  owl's  cry. 

"Ah!  what  a  bird  of  ill-omen.  But,  hark!  Pierrette  is 
out  of  bed.     What  does  she  want?  " 

On  hearing  the  attic  window  open,  Sylvie  rushed  to  her 
own  window  and  heard  Brigaut's  paper  rustle  against  the  shut- 
ters. She  tied  her  jacket  strings,  and  nimbly  mounted  the 
stairs  to  Pierrette's  room ;  she  found  her  untying  the  silk  from 
round  the  letter. 

"  So  I  have  caught  you  !  "  cried  the  old  maid,  going  to  the 
window,  whence  she  saw  Brigaut  take  to  his  heels.  "  Give 
me  that  letter." 

*'  No,  cousin,"  said  the  girl,  who,  by  one  of  the  stupen- 
dous inspirations  of  youth,  and  sustained  by  her  spirit,  rose 
to  the  dignity  of  resistance  which  we  admire  in  the  history  of 
some  nations  reduced  to  desperation. 

"What,  you  will  not?"  cried  Sylvie,  advancing  on  her 
cousin,  and  showing  her  a  hideous  face  full  of  hatred  and 
distorted  by  rage. 

Pierrette  drew  back  a  step  or  two  to  have  time  to  clutch 
her  letter  in  her  hand,  which  she  kept  shut  with  invincible 
strength.  On  seeing  this,  Sylvie  seized  Pierrette's  delicate 
white  hand  in  her  lobster's  claws,  and  tried  to  wrench  it 
open.     It  was  a  fearful  struggle,  an   infamous  struggle,  as 


PIERRETTE.  127 

everything  is  that  dares  to  attack  thought,  the  only  treasure 
that  God  has  set  beyond  the  reach  of  power,  and  keeps  as  a 
secret  bond  between  the  wretched  and  Himself. 

The  two  women,  one  dying,  the  other  full  of  vigor,  looked 
steadfastly  at  each  other.  Pierrette's  eyes  flashed  at  her  tor- 
turer such  a  look  as  the  Templar's  who  received  on  his  breast 
the  blows  from  a  mace  in  the  presence  of  Philippe  le  Bel. 
The  King  could  not  endure  that  fearful  gleam,  and  retired 
appalled  by  it ;  Syivie,  a  woman,  and  a  jealous  woman, 
answered  that  magnetic  glance  by  an  ominous  glare.  Awful 
silence  reigned.  The  Bretonne's  clenched  fingers  resisted 
her  cousin's  efforts  with  the  tenacity  of  a  steel  vise.  Syivie 
wrung  Pierrette's  arm,  and  tried  to  open  her  hand  ;  as  this 
had  no  effect,  she  vainly  set  her  nails  in  the  flesh.  Finally, 
madness  reinforced  her  anger;  she  raised  Pierrette's  fist  to 
her  teeth  to  bite  her  fingers  and  subdue  her  by  pain.  Pier- 
rette still  defied  her  with  the  terrifying  gaze  of  innocence. 
The  old  maid's  fury  was  roused  to  such  a  pitch  that  she  was 
blind  to  all  else  ;  gripping  Pierrette's  arm,  she  beat  the  girl's 
fist  on  the  window-sill,  and  on  the  marble  chimney-piece,  as 
we  beat  a  nut  to  crack  it  and  get  at  the  kernel. 

"  Help,  help  !  "  cried  Pierrette ;  "  I  am  being  killed." 

*'  So  you  scream,  do  you,  when  I  find  you  with  a  lover  in 
the  middle  of  the  night  ?  " 

And  she  hit  again  and  again  without  mercy. 

"  Help,  help  !  "  cried  Pierrette,  whose  fist  was  bleeding. 

At  this  moment  there  were  violent  blows  on  the  street-door. 
Both  equally  exhausted,  the  two  women  ceased. 

Rogron,  aroused  and  anxious,  not  knowing  what  was  hap- 
pening, had  gotten  out  of  bed,  gone  to  his  sister's  room,  and 
not  finding  her  he  was  alarmed,  went  down  and  opened  the 
door,  and  was  almost  upset  by  Brigaut,  followed  by  what 
seemed  a  phantom. 

At  the  same  instant  Sylvie's  eyes  fell  on  Pierrette's  stays ; 
she  remembered  having  felt  the  papers  in  them ;   she  threw 


128  THE  CELIBATES. 

herself  on  them  like  a  tiger  on  his  prey,  twisted  the  stays 
round  her  hand,  and  held  them  up  with  a  smile,  as  an  Iroquois 
smiles  at  his  foe  before  scalping  him. 

"I  am  dying "  said  Pierrette,  dropping  on  her  knees. 

**  Who  will  save  me?  " 

"  I  will,"  cried  a  woman  with  white  hair,  turning  on  Pier- 
rette an  aged,  parchment  face  in  which  a  pair  of  gray  eyes 
sparkled. 

"Ah,  grandmother,  you  have  come  too  late  !  "  cried  the 
poor  child,  melting  into  tears. 

Pierrette  went  to  fall  on  her  bed,  bereft  of  all  her  strength, 
and  half-killed  by  the  reaction,  which  in  a  sick  girl  was  inevi- 
table after  such  a  violent  struggle.  The  tall,  withered  appari- 
tion took  her  in  her  arms  as  a  nurse  takes  a  child,  and  went 
out,  followed  by  Brigaut,  without  saying  a  word  to  Sylvie,  at 
whom,  by  a  tragic  glance,  she  hurled  majestic  accusation. 
The  sight  of  this  dignified  old  woman  in  her  Breton  costume, 
shrouded  in  her  coiffe^  which  is  a  sort  of  long  cloak  made  of 
black  cloth,  and  accompanied  by  the  terrible  Brigaut,  appalled 
Sylvie ;  she  felt  as  if  she  had  seen  death. 

She  went  downstairs,  heard  the  door  shut,  and  found  her- 
self face  to  face  with  her  brother,  who  said  to  her.  "They 
have  not  killed  you  then?" 

"  Go  to  bed,"  said  Sylvie.  "  To-morrow  morning  we  will 
see  what  is  to  be  done." 

She  got  into  bed  again,  unpicked  the  stays,  and  read  Bri- 
gaut's  two  letters,  which  utterly  confounded  her.  She  went 
to  sleep  in  the  strangest  perplexity,  never  dreaming  of  the 
terrible  legal  action  to  which  her  conduct  was  to  give  rise. 

Brigaut's  letter  to  the  widow  Lorrain  had  found  her  in  the 
greatest  joy,  which  was  checked  when  she  read  it.  The  poor 
old  woman,  now  past  seventy,  had  been  dying  of  grief  at 
having  to  live  without  Pierrette  at  her  side ;  she  only  com- 
forted herself  for  her  loss  by  the  belief  that  she  had  sacrificed 


PIERRETTE.  129 

herself  to  her  grandchild's  interests.  She  had  one  of  those 
ever-young  hearts  to  which  self-sacrifice  gives  strength  and 
vitality.  Her  old  husband,  whose  only  joy  Pierrette  had 
been,  had  grieved  for  the  child  ;  day  after  day  he  had  looked 
for  her  and  missed  her.  It  was  an  old  man's  sorrow;  the 
sorrow  old  men  live  on,  and  die  of  at  last. 

Everybody  can  therefore  imagine  the  joy  felt  by  this  poor 
woman,  shut  up  in  an  almshouse,  on  hearing  of  one  of  those 
actions  which,  though  rare,  are  still  heard  of  in  France. 

After  his  failure  Francois  Joseph  Collinet,  the  head  of  the 
house  of  Collinet,  sailed  for  America  with  his  children.  He 
was  a  man  of  too  much  good  feeling  to  sit  down  at  Nantes, 
ruined  and  bereft  of  credit,  in  the  midst  of  the  disasters 
caused  by  his  bankruptcy.  From  1814  till  1824  this  brave 
merchant,  helped  by  his  children  and  by  his  cashier,  who 
remained  faithful  to  him  and  loaned  him  the  money  to  start 
again,  valiantly  worked  to  make  a  second  fortune.  After  in- 
credible efforts,  that  were  crowned  by  success,  by  the  eleventh 
year  he  was  able  to  return  to  Nantes  and  rehabilitate  himself, 
leaving  liis  eldest  son  at  the  head  of  the  American  house.  He 
found  Madame  Lorrain  of  Pen-Hoel  at  Saint-Jacques,  and 
beheld  the  resignation  with  which  the  most  hapless  of  his  fel- 
low-victims endured  her  penury. 

"  God  forgive  you  !  "  said  the  old  woman,  "since  you  give 
me  on  the  brink  of  the  grave  the  means  of  securing  my  grand- 
child's happiness.  I,  alas  !  can  never  see  my  poor  old  man's 
credit  re-established." 

Monsieur  Collinet  had  brought  to  his  creditor  her  capital 
and  interest  at  trade  rates,  altogether  about  forty-two  thousand 
francs.  His  other  creditors,  active,  wealthy,  and  capable  men, 
had  kept  themselves  above  water,  while  the  Lorrains'  over- 
throw had  seemed  to  old  Collinet  irremediable ;  he  had  now 
promised  the  widow  that  he  would  rehabilitate  her  husband's 
good  name,  finding  that  it  would  involve  an  expenditure  of 
only  about  forty  thousand  francs  more.  When  this  act  of 
9 


130  THE   CELIBATES. 

generous  restitution  became  known  on  'change  at  Nantes,  the 
authorities  were  eager  to  reopen  its  doors  to  Collinet  before 
he  had  surrendered  to  the  court  at  Rennes ;  but  the  merchant 
declined  the  honor,  and  submitted  to  all  the  rigor  of  the  com- 
mercial code. 

Madame  Lorrain,  then,  had  received  forty-two  thousand 
francs  the  day  before  the  post  brought  her  Brigaut's  letters. 
As  she  signed  her  receipt,  her  first  words  were — 

"  Now  I  can  live  with  my  Pierrette,  and  let  her  marry 
poor  Brigaut,  who  will  then  be  able  to  make  a  fortune  out  of 
my  money !  " 

She  could  not  sit  still ;  she  fussed  and  fidgeted,  and  wanted 
to  set  out  for  Provins.  And  when  she  had  read  the  fatal 
letters,  she  rushed  out  into  the  town  like  a  mad  thing,  asking 
how  she  could  get  to  Provins  with  the  swiftness  of  lightning. 
She  set  out  by  mail  when  she  heard  of  the  governmental 
rapidity  of  that  conveyance.  From  Paris  she  took  the  Troyes 
coach;  she  had  arrived  at  eleven  that  evening  at  Frappier's, 
where  Brigaut,  seeing  the  old  Bretonne's  deep  despair,  at 
once  promised  to  fetch  her  granddaughter,  after  describing 
Pierrette's  state  in  a  few  words.  Those  few  words  so  alarmed 
the  old  woman  that  she  could  not  control  her  impatience ;  she 
ran  out  to  the  square.  When  Pierrette  screamed,  her  grand- 
mother's heart  was  pierced  by  the  cry  as  keenly  as  was  Brigaut's. 
The  two  together  would  no  doubt  have  roused  all  the  inhab- 
itants, if  Rogron,  in  sheer  terror,  had  not  opened  the  door. 
This  cry  of  a  girl  in  her  extremity  filled  the  old  woman  with 
strength  as  great  as  her  horror ;  she  carried  her  dear  Pier- 
rette all  the  way  to  Frappier's,  where  his  wife  had  hastily 
arranged  Brigaut's  room  for  Pierrette's  grandmother.  So  in 
this  miserable  lodging,  on  a  bed  scarcely  made,  they  laid  the 
poor  child  ;  she  fainted  away,  still  keeping  her  hand  closed, 
bruised  and  bleeding  as  it  was,  her  nails  set  in  the  flesh.  Bri- 
gaut, Frappier,  his  wife,  and  the  old  woman  contemplated 
Pierrette  in  silence,  all  lost  in  unutterable  astonishment. 


PIERRETTE.  181 

**Whyis  her  hand  covered  with  blood?"  was  the  grand- 
mother's first  question. 

Pierrette,  overcome  by  the  sleep  which  follows  such  an 
extreme  exertion  of  strength,  and  knowing  that  she  was  safe 
from  any  violence,  relaxed  her  fingers.  Brigaut's  letter  fell 
out  as  an  answer. 

"They  wanted  to  get  my  letter,"  said  Brigaut,  falling  on 
his  knees  and  picking  up  the  note  he  had  written,  desiring  his 
little  friend  to  steal  softly  out  of  the  Rogrons'  house.  He 
piously  kissed  the  little  martyr's  hand. 

Then  there  was  a  thing  which  made  the  joiners  shudder : 
it  was  the  sight  of  old  Madame  Lorrain,  a  sublime  spectre, 
standing  by  the  child's  bedside.  Horror  and  vengeance  fired 
with  fierce  expression  the  myriad  wrinkles  that  furrowed  her 
skin  of  ivory  yellow ;  on  her  brow,  shaded  by  thin,  gray 
locks,  sat  divine  wrath.  With  the  powerful  intuition  granted 
to  the  aged  as  they  approach  the  tomb,  she  read  all  Pierrette's 
life,  of  which  indeed  she  had  been  thinking  all  the  way  she 
had  come. 

She  understood  the  malady  that  threatened  the  life  of  her 
darling.  Two  large  tears  gathered  painfully  in  her  gray-and- 
white  eyes,  which  sorrow  had  robbed  of  lashes  and  eyebrows ; 
two  beads  of  grief  that  gave  a  fearful  moisture  to  those  eyes, 
and  swelled  and  rolled  over  those  withered  cheeks  without 
wetting  them. 

"They  have  killed  her!"  she  exclaimed  at  last,  clasping 
her  hands. 

She  dropped  on  her  knees,  which  hit  two  sharp  blows  on 
the  floor ;  she  was  making  a  vow,  no  doubt,  to  Sainte-Anne 
d'Auray,  the  most  powerful  Madonna  of  Brittany. 

"A  doctor  from  Paris,"  she  next  said  to  Brigaut.  "Fly 
there,  Brigaut.     Go  !  " 

She  took  the  artisan  by  the  shoulders  and  turned  him  round 
with  a  despotic  gesture. 

"I  was  coming  at  any  rate,  my  good  Brigaut,"  she  said. 


182  THE   CELIBATES. 

calling  him  back.  "I  am  rich.  Here!  "  She  untied  the 
ribbon  that  fastened  her  bodice  across  her  bosom,  took  out  a 
paper,  in  which  were  wrapped  forty-two  bank-notes,  and  said, 
"Take  as  much  as  you  need;  bring  back  the  greatest  doctor 
in  Paris." 

"  Keep  that,"  said  Frappier ;  "he  could  not  change  a  bank- 
note at  this  hour.  I  have  money;  the  diligence  will  pass 
presently,  he  will  be  sure  to  find  a  place  in  it.  But  would  it 
not  be  better  first  to  consult  Monsieur  Martener,  who  will 
give  us  the  name  of  a  Paris  physician  ?  The  diligence  is  not 
due  for  an  hour ;  we  have  plenty  of  time." 

Brigaut  went  off  to  rouse  Monsieur  Martener.  He  brought 
the  doctor  back  with  him,  not  a  little  surprised  to  find  Made- 
moiselle Lorrain  at  Frappier's.  Brigaut  described  to  him  the 
scene  that  had  just  taken  place  at  the  Rogrons.  The  loqua- 
city of  a  despairing  lover  threw  light  on  this  domestic  drama, 
though  the  doctor  could  not  suspect  its  horrors  or  its  extent. 
Martener  gave  Brigaut  the  address  of  the  famous  Horace 
Bianchon,  and  Jacques  and  his  master  left  the  room  on  hear- 
ing the  approach  of  the  diligence. 

Monsieur  Martener  sat  down,  and  began  by  examining  the 
bruises  and  wounds  on  the  girl's  hand,  which  hung  out  of  bed. 

"  She  did  not  hurt  herself  in  such  a  way,"  said  he. 

"No,  the  dreadful  creature  I  was  so  unhappy  as  to  trust 
her  with  was  torturing  her,"  said  the  grandmother.  "My 
poor  Pierrette  was  crying  out,  '  Help  !  Murder  ! '  It  was 
enough  to  touch  the  heart  of  an  executioner." 

"But  why?"  said  the  doctor,  feeling  Pierrette's  pulse. 
"  She  is  very  ill,"  he  went  on,  bringing  the  light  close  to  the 
bed.  "  We  shall  hardly  save  her,"  said  he,  after  looking  at 
her  face.  "She  must  have  suffered  terribly,  and  I  cannot 
understand  their  having  left  her  without  care." 

"  It  is  my  intention,"  said  the  old  woman,  "  to  appeal  to 
justice.  Had  these  people,  who  wrote  to  ask  me  for  my 
granddaughter,  saying  that  they  had  twelve  thousand  francs  a 


PIERRETTE.  133 

year,  any  right  to  make  her  their  cook  and  give  her  work  far 
beyond  her  strength  ?  ' ' 

"They  did  not  choose  to  see  that  she  was  obviously  suffer- 
ing from  one  of  the  ailments  to  which  young  girls  are  some- 
times subject,  and  needed  the  greatest  care  !  * '  cried  Monsieur 
Martener. 

Pierrette  was  roused,  partly  by  the  light  held  by  Madame 
Frappier  so  as  to  show  her  face  more  clearly,  and  partly  by 
the  dreadful  pain  in  her  head,  caused  by  reactionary  collapse 
after  her  struggle. 

"Oh,  Monsieur  Martener,  I  am  very  ill,"  said  she,  in  her 
pretty  voice. 

"  Where  is  the  pain,  my  child?  "  said  the  doctor. 

"There,"  she  replied,  pointing  to  a  spot  on  her  head 
above  the  left  ear. 

"There  is  an  abscess!"  cried  the  doctor,  after  feeling 
Pierrette's  head  for  some  time,  and  questioning  her  as  to  the 
pain.  "You  must  tell  us  everything,  my  dear,  to  enable  us 
to  cure  you.  Why  is  your  hand  in  this  state  ?  You  did  not 
injure  it  like  this  yourself." 

Pierrette  artlessly  told  the  tale  of  her  struggle  with  her 
cousin  Sylvie. 

"Make  her  talk  to  you,"  said  the  doctor  to  her  grand- 
mother, "  and  learn  all  about  it.  I  will  wait  till  the  surgeon 
arrives  from  Paris,  and  we  will  call  in  the  head  surgeon  of  the 
hospital  for  a  consultation.  It  seems  to  me  very  serious.  I 
will  send  a  soothing  draught  to  give  mademoiselle  some 
sleep.     She  needs  rest." 

The  old  Bretonne,  left  alone  with  her  grandchild,  made 
her  tell  everything,  by  exerting  her  influence  over  her,  and 
explaining  to  her  that  she  was  rich  enough  for  all  three,  so 
that  Brigaut  need  never  leave  them.  The  poor  child  con- 
fessed all  her  sufferings,  never  dreaming  of  the  lawsuit  she 
was  leading  up  to.  The  monstrous  conduct  of  these  two 
loveless    beings,    who    knew    nothing    of   family   affection, 


184  THE   CELIBATES. 

revealed  to  the  old  woman  worlds  of  torment,  as  far  from  her 
conception  as  the  manners  of  the  savage  tribes  must  have 
been  to  the  first  travelers  who  penetrated  the  savannahs  of 
America. 

Her  grandmother's  presence,  and  the  certainty  of  living 
with  her  for  the  future  in  perfect  ease,  lulled  Pierrette's  mind 
as  the  draught  lulled  her  body.  The  old  woman  watched  by 
her,  kissing  her  brow,  hair,  and  hands,  as  the  holy  women 
may  have  kissed  Jesus  while  laying  Him  in  the  sepulchre. 

By  nine  in  the  morning  Monsieur  Martener  went  to  the 
president  of  the  courts,  and  related  to  him  the  scene  of  the 
past  night  between  Sylvie  and  Pierrette,  the  moral  and  phys- 
ical torture,  the  cruelty  of  every  kind  inflicted  by  the  Rogrons 
on  their  ward,  and  the  two  fatal  maladies  which  had  been 
developed  by  this  ill-usage.  The  president  sent  for  the  notary, 
Monsieur  Auffray,  a  connection  of  Pierrette's  on  her  mother's 
side. 

At  this  moment  the  war  between  the  Vinet  party  and  the 
Tiphaine  party  was  at  its  height.  The  gossip  circulated  in 
Provins  by  the  Rogrons  and  their  adherents  as  to  the  well- 
known  liaison  between  Madame  Roguin  and  du  Tillet  the 
banker,  and  the  circumstances  of  Monsieur  Roguin's  bank- 
ruptcy— Madame  Tiphaine' s  father  was  said  to  have  com- 
mitted forgery — hit  all  the  more  surely  because,  though  it 
was  scandal,  it  was  not  calumny.  Such  wounds  pierced  to 
the  bottom  of  things ;  they  attacked  self-interest  in  its  most 
vital  part.  These  statements,  repeated  to  the  partisans  of 
Tiphaine  by  the  same  speakers  who  also  reported  to  the 
Rogrons  all  the  sarcasms  uttered  by  the  "  beautiful  Madame 
Tiphaine"  and  her  friends,  added  fuel  to  their  hatred,  com- 
plicated as  it  was  with  political  feeling. 

The  irritation  caused  in  France  at  that  time  by  party  spirit, 
which  had  waxed  excessively  violent,  was  everywhere  bound 
up,  as  it  was  at  Provins,  with  imperiled  interests  and  offended 


PIERRETTE.  135 

and  antagonistic  private  feelings.  Each  coterie  eagerly 
pounced  on  anything  that  might  damage  its  rival.  Party 
animosity  was  not  less  implicated  than  personal  conceit  in 
even  trivial  questions,  which  were  often  carried  to  great 
lengths.  A  whole  town  threw  itself  into  some  dispute,  rais- 
ing it  to  the  dignity  of  a  political  contest.  And  so  the 
president  discerned,  in  the  action  between  Pierrette  and  the 
Rogrons,  a  means  of  confuting,  discrediting,  and  humiliating 
the  owners  of  that  drawing-room  where  plots  were  hatched 
against  the  monarchy,  and  where  the  opposition  newspaper 
had  had  its  birth. 

He  sent  for  the  public  prosecutor.  Then  Monsieur  Lesourd, 
Monsieur  AufTray  the  notary — appointed  the  legal  guardian 
of  Pierrette — and  the  president  of  the  court  discussed  in  the 
greatest  privacy,  with  Monsieur  Martener,  what  steps  could 
be  taken.  The  legal  guardian  was  to  call  a  family  council  (a 
formality  of  French  law),  and,  armed  with  the  evidence  of 
the  three  medical  men,  would  demand  the  dismissal  of  Rogron 
from  his  guardianship.  The  case  thus  formulated  would  be 
brought  before  the  tribunal,  and  then  Monsieur  Lesourd 
would  get  it  carried  into  the  criminal  court  by  demanding  an 
inquiry. 

By  mid-day  all  Provins  was  in  a  stir  over  the  strange  re- 
ports of  what  had  taken  place  at  the  Rogrons  in  the  course 
of  the  past  night.  Pierrette's  screams  had  been  remotely 
heard  in  the  square,  but  they  had  not  lasted  long  ;  no  one  had 
gotten  up;  but  everybody  had  asked  in  the  morning,  "Did 
you  hear  the  noise  and  screaming  at  about  one  o'clock? 
What  was  it?"  Gossip  and  comment  had  given  such  magni- 
tude to  the  horrible  drama  that  a  crowd  collected  in  front  of 
Frappier's  shop,  everybody  cross-questioning  the  honest 
joiner,  who  described  the  girl's  arrival  at  his  house  with  her 
hand  bleeding  and  her  fingers  mangled. 

At  about  one  in  the  afternoon  a  post-chaise,  containing 
Doctor  Bianchon,  by  whom  sat  Brigaut,  stopped  at  Frappier's 


136  THE   CELIBATES. 

door,  and  Madame  Frappier  went  off  to  the  hospital  to  fetch 
Monsieur  Martener  and  the  head  surgeon.  Thus  the  reports 
heard  in  the  town  received  confirmation. 

The  Rogrons  were  accused  of  having  intentionally  mal- 
treated their  young  cousin,  and  endangered  her  life.  The 
news  reached  Vinet  at  the  law  courts;  he  left  his  business  and 
hurried  to  the  Rogrons.  Rogron  and  his  sister  had  just 
finished  breakfast.  Sylvie  had  avoided  telling  her  brother  of 
her  defeat  during  the  night ;  she  allowed  him  to  question 
her,  making  no  reply  but :  "  It  does  not  concern  you."  And 
she  bustled  to  and  fro  between  the  kitchen  and  dining-room 
to  avoid  all  discussion. 

She  was  alone  when  Vinet  walked  in. 

"  Do  you  know  nothing  of  what  is  going  on?"  asked  the 
lawyer. 

"No,"  said  Sylvie. 

"You  are  going  to  have  a  criminal  action  brought  against 
you  for  the  way  in  which  matters  stand  with  Pierrette,"  the 
lawyer  informed  her. 

"A  criminal  action  !  "  said  Rogron,  coming  in.  "  Why? 
What  for?" 

"In  the  first  place,"  said  Vinet,  looking  at  Sylvie,  "tell 
me  exactly,  without  subterfuge,  all  that  took  place  last  night, 
as  though  you  were  before  God,  for  there  is  some  talk  of  cut- 
ting off  Pierrette's  hand." 

Sylvie  turned  ashy  pale  and  shivered. 

"  Then  there  was  something?"  said  the  lawyer. 

Mademoiselle  Rogron  told  the  story,  trying  to  justify  her- 
self; but,  on  being  cross-questioned,  related  all  the  details  of 
the  horrible  conflict. 

"  If  you  have  only  broken  her  fingers,  you  will  only  appear 
in  the  police  court ;  but  if  her  hand  has  to  be  amputated,  you 
will  find  yourself  brought  up  at  the  assizes.  The  Tiphaines 
will  do  anything  to  get  you  there." 

Sylvie,  more  dead  than  alive,  confessed  her  jealousy,  and. 


PIERRETTE.  137 

which  was  even  harder  to  bring  out,  how  her  suspicions  had 
blundered. 

"What  a  case  for  trial!  "  exclaimed  Vinet.  "You  and 
your  brother  may  be  ruined  by  it ;  you  will  be  thrown  over 
by  many  of  your  friends  even  if  you  gain  it.  If  you  do  not 
come  out  clear,  you  will  have  to  leave  Provins." 

"  Oh  !  my  dear  Monsieur  Vinet — you  who  are  such  an  able 
lawyer,"  cried  Rogron,  horrified,  "  advise  us,  save  us  !  " 

Vinet  dexterously  fomented  the  fears  of  these  two  fools  to 
the  utmost,  and  declared  positively  that  Madame  and  Made- 
moiselle de  Chargebceuf  would  hesitate  to  go  to  their  house 
again.  To  be  forsaken  by  these  two  ladies  would  be  a  fatal 
condemnation.  In  short,  after  an  hour  of  magnificent  ma- 
noeuvring, it  was  agreed  that  in  order  to  induce  Vinet  to  save 
the  Rogrons  he  must  have  an  interest  at  stake  in  defending 
them  in  the  eyes  of  all  Provins.  In  the  course  of  the  evening 
Rogron's  engagement  to  marry  Mademoiselle  de  Chargebceuf 
was  to  be  announced.  The  banns  were  to  be  published  on 
Sunday.  The  marriage-contract  would  at  once  be  drawn  up 
by  Cournant,  and  Mademoiselle  Rogron  would  figure  in  it  as 
abandoning,  in  consideration  of  this  alliance,  the  capital  of 
her  share  of  tne  estate  by  a  deed  of  gift  to  her  brother,  reserv- 
ing only  a  life-interest.  Vinet  impressed  on  Rogron  and  his 
sister  the  necessity  of  having  a  draft  of  this  deed  drawn  up 
two  or  three  days  before  that  event,  so  as  to  put  Madame  and 
Mademoiselle  de  Chargebceuf  under  the  necessity,  in  public 
opinion,  of  continuing  their  visits  to  the  Rogrons. 

**  Sign  that  contract,  and  I  will  undertake  to  get  you  out  of 
the  scrape,"  said  the  lawyer.  "It  will  no  doubt  be  a  hard 
fight,  but  I  will  go  into  it  body  and  soul,  and  you  will  owe 
me  a  very  handsome  taper." 

"Yes,  indeed,"  said  Rogron. 

By  half-past  eleven  the  lawyer  was  empowered  to  act  for 
them,  alike  as  to  the  contract  and  as  to  the  management  of 
the  case.     At  noon  the  president  was  informed  that  a  sum- 


138  THE   CELIBATES. 

mons  was  applied  for  by  Vinet  against  Brigaut  and  the  widow 
Lorrain  for  abducting  Pierrette  Lorrain,  a  minor,  from  the 
domicile  of  her  guardian.  Thus  the  audacious  Vinet  took  up 
the  offensive,  putting  Rogron  in  the  position  of  a  man  having 
the  law  on  his  side.  This,  indeed,  was  the  tone  in  which  the 
matter  was  commented  on  in  the  law  courts.  The  president 
postponed  hearing  the  parties  till  four  o'clock.  The  excite- 
ment of  the  town  over  all  these  events  need  not  be  described. 
The  president  knew  that  the  medical  consultation  would  be 
ended  by  three  o'clock;  he  wished  that  the  legal  guardian 
should  appear  armed  with  the  physician's  verdict. 

The  announcement  of  Rogron's  engagement  to  the  fair 
Bathilde  de  Chargebceuf,  and  of  the  deed  of  gift  added  by 
Sylvie  to  the  contract,  promptly  made  the  Rogrons  two 
enemies — Mademoiselle  Habert  and  the  colonel,  who  thus 
saw  all  their  hopes  dashed.  Celeste  Habert  and  the  colonel 
remained  ostensibly  friends  to  the  Rogrons,  but  only  to 
damage  them  more  effectually.  So,  as  soon  as  Monsieur 
Martener  spoke  of  the  existence  of  an  abscess  on  the  brain  in 
the  haberdashers'  hapless  victim,  Celeste  and  the  colonel 
mentioned  the  blow  Pierrette  had  given  herself  that  evening 
when  Sylvie  had  driven  her  out  of  the  room,  and  remembered 
Mademoiselle  Rogron's  cruel  and  barbarous  remarks.  They 
related  various  instances  of  the  old  maid's  utter  indifference 
to  her  ward's  sufferings.  Thus  these  friends  of  the  couple 
admitted  serious  wrong,  while  affecting  to  defend  Sylvie  and 
her  brother. 

Vinet  had  foreseen  this  storm  ;  but  Mademoiselle  de  Charge- 
bceuf was  about  to  acquire  the  whole  of  the  Rogrons'  fortune, 
and  he  promised  himself  that  in  a  few  weeks  he  should  see  her 
living  in  the  nice  house  on  the  piazza,  and  reign  conjointly 
with  her  over  Provins ;  for  he  was  already  scheming  for  a 
coalition  with  the  Breauteys  to  serve  his  own  ambitions. 

From  twelve  o'clock  till  four  all  the  ladies  of  the  Tiphaine 
faction — the  Garcelands,  the  Guepins,  the  Julliards,  Mesdames 


PIERRETTE.  139 

Galardon,  Guenee,  and  the  sous-prefet's  wife — all  sent  to  in- 
quire after  Mademoiselle  Lorrain.  Pierrette  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  this  commotion  in  the  town  on  her  behalf.  In 
the  midst  of  acute  suffering  she  felt  ineffably  happy  at  finding 
herself  between  her  grandmother  and  Brigaut,  the  objects  of 
her  affection.  Brigaut's  eyes  were  constantly  full  of  tears, 
and  the  old  woman  petted  her  beloved  grandchild. 

God  knows  the  grandmother  spared  the  three  men  of  science 
none  of  the  details  she  had  heard  from  Pierrette  about  her  life 
with  the  Rogrons  !  Horace  Bianchon  expressed  his  indigna- 
tion in  unmeasured  terms.  Horrified  by  such  barbarity,  he 
insisted  that  the  other  doctors  of  the  town  should  be  called 
in ;  so  Monsieur  Neraud  was  present,  and  was  requested,  as 
being  Rogron's  friend,  to  contradict  if  he  could  the  terrible 
inferences  derived  from  the  consultation,  which,  unfortunately 
for  Rogron,  were  unanimously  subscribed  to.  Neraud,  who 
was  already  credited  with  having  made  Pierrette's  maternal 
grandmother  die  of  grief,  was  in  a  false  position,  of  which 
Martener  adroitly  took  advantage,  delighted  to  overwhelm 
the  Rogrons,  and  also  to  compromise  Monsieur  Neraud,  his 
antagonist.  It  is  needless  to  give  the  text  of  this  document, 
which  also  was  produced  at  the  trial.  If  the  medical  terms 
of  Moliere's  age  were  barbarous,  those  of  modern  medicine 
have  the  advantage  of  such  extreme  plain  speaking  that  an 
account  of  Pierrette's  maladies,  though  natural,  and  unfortu- 
nately common,  would  shock  the  ear.  The  verdict  was  indis- 
putably final,  attested  by  so  famous  a  name  as  that  of  Horace 
Bianchon. 

After  the  court  sitting  was  over,  the  president  remained  in 
his  place,  while  Pierrette's  grandmother  came  in  with  Mon- 
sieur Auffray,  Brigaut,  and  a  considerable  crowd.  Vinet 
appeared  alone.  This  contrast  struck  the  spectators,  includ- 
ing a  vast  number  of  merely  inquisitive  persons.  Vinet,  who 
had  kept  his  gown  on,  raised  his  hard  face  to  the  president, 
settling  his  spectacles  as  he  began  in  his  harsh,  sawing  tones 


140  THE   CELIBATES. 

to  set  forth  that  certain  strangers  had  made  their  way  into  the 
house  of  Monsieur  and  Mademoiselle  Rogron  by  night,  and 
had  carried  away  the  girl  Lorrain,  a  minor.  Her  guardian 
claimed  the  protection  of  the  court  to  recover  his  ward. 

Monsieur  Auflfray,  as  the  guardian  appointed  by  the  court, 
rose  to  speak. 

"If  Monsieur  le  President,"  said  he,  "will  take  into  his 
consideration  this  consultation,  signed  by  one  of  the  most 
eminent  Paris  physicians,  and  by  all  the  doctors  and  surgeons 
of  Provins,  he  will  perceive  how  unreasonable  is  Monsieur 
Rogron's  claim,  and  that  sufficient  reasons  induced  the  minor's 
grandmother  to  release  her  at  once  from  her  tormentors.  The 
facts  are  these  :  A  deliberate  consultation,  signed  unanimously 
by  a  celebrated  Paris  doctor,  sent  for  in  great  haste,  and  by 
all  the  medical  authorities  of  the  town,  ascribe  the  almost 
dying  state  of  the  ward  to  the  ill-treatment  she  had  received 
at  the  hands  of  the  said  Rogron  and  his  sister.  As  a  legal 
formality  a  family  council  will  he  held,  with  the  least  possible 
delay,  and  consulted  on  the  question  whether  the  guardian 
ought  not  to  be  held  disqualified  for  his  office.  We  petition 
that  the  minor  shall  not  be  sent  back  to  her  guardian's  house, 
but  shall  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  any  other  member  of  the 
family  whom  Monsieur  le  President  may  see  fit  to  designate." 

Vinet  wanted  to  reply,  saying  that  the  document  of  the 
consultation  ought  to  be  communicated  to  him  that  he  might 
contravene  it. 

"Certainly  not  to  Vinet's  side,"  said  the  president 
severely,  "  but  perhaps  to  the  public  prosecutor.  The  case  is 
closed." 

At  the  foot  of  the  petition  the  president  wrote  the  follow- 
ing injunction  : 

"Inasmuch  as  that  by  a  consultation  unanimously  signed 
by  the  medical  faculty  of  this  town  and  by  Doctor  Bianchon 
of  the  medical  faculty  of  Paris,  it  is  proved  that  the  girl 
Lorrain,  a  minor,  claimed  by  her  guardian   Rogron,  is  in  a 


PIERRETTE.  141 

very  serious  state  of  sickness  brought  on  by  the  ill-usage  and 
cruelty  inflicted  on  her  in  the  house  of  her  guardian  and  his 
sister. 

"  We,  president  of  the  lower  court  of  justice  at  Provins, 

"  Decree  on  the  petition  and  enjoin  that  until  the  family 
council  shall  have  been  held,  which,  as  the  provisional  guardian 
appointed  by  the  law  declares,  is  at  once  to  be  convened,  the 
said  minor  shall  not  re-enter  her  guardian's  residence,  but 
shall  be  transferred  to  that  of  the  guardian  appointed  by 
the  law. 

**  And  in  the  second  place,  in  consideration  of  the  minor's 
present  state  of  health,  and  the  traces  of  violence  which, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  medical  men,  are  to  be  seen  on  her 
person,  we  commission  the  chief  physician  and  chief  surgeon 
of  the  hospital  of  Provins  to  attend  her ;  and  in  the  event  of 
the  cruelty  being  proved  to  have  been  constant,  we  reserve 
all  the  rights  and  powers  of  the  law,  without  prejudice  to 
the  civil  action  taken  by  Auffray,  the  legalized  temporary 
guardian." 

This  terrible  injunction  was  pronounced  by  Monsieur  le 
President  Tiphaine  with  a  loud  voice  and  distinct  utterance. 

"Why  not  the  hulks  at  once?"  said  Vinet.  "And  all 
this  fuss  about  a  little  girl  who  carried  on  an  intrigue  with  a 
carpenter's  apprentice  !  If  this  is  the  way  the  case  is  con- 
ducted," he  added  insolently,  "  we  shall  apply  for  other 
judgment  on  the  plea  of  legitimate  suspicions." 

Vinet  left  the  court,  and  went  to  the  chief  leaders  of  his 
party  to  explain  the  position  of  Rogron,  who  had  never  given 
his  little  cousin  a  finger-flip  and  whom  the  tribunal  had 
treated,  he  declared,  less  as  Pierrette's  guardian  than  as  the 
chief  voter  in  Provins. 

To  hear  him,  the  Tiphaines  were  making  much  ado  about 
nothing.  The  mountain  would  bring  forth  a  mouse.  Sylvie, 
an  eminently  religious  and  well-conducted  person,  had  detected 
an  intrigue  between  her  brother's  ward  and  a  carpenter's  boy. 


142  THE  CELIBATES. 

a  Breton  named  Brigaut.  The  young  rascal  knew  very  well 
that  the  girl  would  have  a  fortune  from  her  grandmother,  and 

wanted  to  tamper  with  her Vinet  to  talk  of  tampering  ! 

■ Mademoiselle  Rogron,  who   had  kept  the   letters   in 

which  this  little  wench's  wickedness  was  made  clear,  was  not 
so  much  to  blame  as  the  Tiphaines  tried  to  make  her  seem. 
Even  if  she  had  been  betrayed  into  violence  to  obtain  a  letter, 
which  could  easily  be  accounted  for  by  the  irritation  produced 
in  her  by  Breton  obstinacy,  in  what  was  Rogron  to  blame  ? 

The  lawyer  thus  made  the  action  a  party  matter,  and  con- 
trived to  give  it  political  color.  And  so,  from  that  evening, 
there  were  differences  of  opinion  on  the  question. 

"If  you  hear  but  one  bell,  you  hear  but  one  note,"  said 
the  wise-heads.  "Have  you  heard  what  Vinet  has  to  say? 
He  explains  the  case  very  well." 

Frappier's  house  was  regarded  as  unsuitable  for  Pierrette 
on  account  of  the  noise,  which  would  cause  her  much  pain  in 
the  head.  Her  removal  from  there  to  her  appointed  guar- 
dian's house  was  as  desirable  from  a  medical  as  from  a  legal 
point  of  view.  This  business  was  effected  with  the  utmost 
care,  and  calculated  to  make  a  great  sensation.  Pierrette  was 
placed  on  a  stretcher  with  many  mattresses,  carried  by  two 
men,  escorted  by  a  gray  sister  holding  in  her  hand  a  bottle  of 
ether,  followed  by  her  grandmother,  Brigaut,  Madame  Auffray, 
and  her  maid.  The  people  stood  at  the  windows  and  in  the 
doors  to  see  the  little  procession  pass.  No  doubt  the  state  in 
which  Pierrette  was  seen  and  her  death-like  pallor  gave  im- 
mense support  to  the  party  adverse  to  the  Rogrons.  The 
Auffrays  were  bent  on  showing  to  all  the  town  how  right  the 
president  had  been  in  pronouncing  his  injunction.  Pierrette 
and  her  grandmother  were  established  on  the  second  floor  of 
Monsieur  Auffray' s  house.  The  notary  and  his  wife  lavished 
on  them  the  generosity  of  the  amplest  hospitality ;  they  made 
a  display  of  it.     Pierrette  was  nursed  by  her  grandmother, 


PIERRETTE.  143 

and  Monsieur  Marlener  came  to  see  her  again  the  same  even, 
ing,  with  the  surgeon. 

From  that  evening  dated  much  exaggeration  on  both  sides. 
The  Rogrons'  room  was  crowded.  Vinet  had  worked  up  the 
Liberal  faction  in  the  matter.  The  two  Chargeboeuf  ladies 
dined  with  the  Rogrons,  for  the  marriage  contract  was  to  be 
signed  forthwith.  Vinet  had  had  the  banns  put  up  at  the 
Mairie  that  morning.  He  treated  the  business  of  Pierrette  as 
a  mere  trifle.  If  the  court  of  Provins  could  not  judge  it  dis- 
passionately, the  superior  court  would  judge  of  the  facts, 
said  he,  and  the  Auffrays  would  think  twice  before  rushing 
into  such  an  action.  Then  the  connection  between  the  Ro- 
grons and  the  Chargeboeufs  was  of  immense  weight  with  cer- 
tain people.  To  them  the  Rogrons  were  as  white  as  snow, 
and  Pierrette  an  excessively  wicked  little  girl  whom  they 
had  cherished  in  their  bosom. 

In  Madame  Tiphaine's  drawing-room  vengeance  was  taken 
on  the  horrible  scandals  the  Vinet  party  had  promulgated  for 
the  last  two  years.  The  Rogrons  were  monsters,  and  the 
guardian  would  find  himself  in  the  criminal  court.  In  the 
square,  Pierrette  was  perfectly  well ;  in  the  upper  town,  she 
must  infallibly  die  ;  at  the  Rogrons,  she  had  a  few  scratches 
on  her  hand ;  at  Madame  Tiphaine's,  she  had  her  fingers 
smashed  ;  one  would  have  to  be  cut  off. 

Next  day  the  Cotirrier  de  Provins  had  an  extremely  clever 
article,  well  written,  a  masterpiece  of  innuendo  mixed  up 
with  legal  demurs,  which  placed  the  Rogrons  above  suspicion. 
The  Ruche,  which  came  out  two  days  later,  could  not  reply 
without  risk  of  libel  ;  but  it  said  that  in  a  case  like  the  pres- 
sent,  the  best  thing  was  to  leave  justice  to  take  its  course. 

The  family  council  was  constituted  by  the  justice  of  the 
peace  of  the  Provins  district,  as  the  legal  president,  in  the 
first  place,  of  Rogron  and  the  two  Auffrays,  Pierrette's  next- 
of-kin  ;  then  of  Monsieur  Ciprey,  a  nephew  of  Pierrette's 
maternal  grandmother.     He  added  to  these  Monsieur  Habert, 


144  THE   CELIBATES. 

the  young  girl's  director,  and  Colonel  Gouraud,  who  had 
always  given  himself  out  to  be  a  comrade  of  her  father, 
Colonel  Lorrain.  The  justice's  impartiality  was  highly  ap- 
plauded in  including  in  this  family  council  Monsieur  Habert 
and  the  colonel,  whom  all  the  town  regarded  as  great  friends 
of  the  Rogrons.  In  the  difficult  position  in  which  he  found 
himself,  Rogron  begged  to  be  allowed  the  support  of  Maitre 
Vinet  on  the  occasion.  By  this  manoeuvre,  evidently  sug- 
gested by  Vinet,  he  succeeded  in  postponing  the  meeting  of 
the  family  council  till  the  end  of  December. 

At  that  date  the  president  and  his  wife  were  in  Paris,  living 
with  Madame  Roguin,  in  consequence  of  the  sitting  of  the 
Chambers.  Thus  the  ministerial  party  at  Provins  was  bereft 
of  its  head.  Vinet  had  already  quietly  made  friends  with  the 
worthy  examining  judge,  Monsieur  Desfondrilles,  in  case  the 
business  should  assume  the  penal  or  criminal  aspect  that 
Tiphaine  had  endeavored  to  give  it. 

For  three  hours  Vinet  addressed  the  family  council ;  he 
proved  an  intrigue  between  Brigaut  and  Pierrette,  to  justify 
Mademoiselle  Rogron's  severity;  he  pointed  out  how  natural 
it  was  that  the  guardian  should  have  left  his  ward  under  the 
control  of  a  woman  ;  he  dwelt  on  his  client's  non-interference 
in  the  mode  of  Pierrette's  education  as  conducted  by  Sylvie. 
But  in  spite  of  Vinet's  efforts,  the  meeting  unanimously  de- 
cided on  abolishing  Rogron's  guardianship.  Monsieur  Auf- 
fray  was  appointed  Pierrette's  guardian,  and  Monsieur  Ciprey 
her  legal  guardian. 

They  heard  the  evidence  given  by  Adele  the  maid,  who 
incriminated  her  former  master  and  mistress ;  by  Mademoi- 
selle Habert,  who  repeated  Sylvie's  cruel  remarks  the  evening 
when  Pierrette  had  given  herself  the  dreadful  blow  that  every- 
body had  heard;  and  the  comments  on  Pierrette's  health  made 
by  Madame  de  Chargeboeuf.  Brigaut  produced  the  letter  he 
had  received  from  Pierrette,  which  established  their  inno- 
cence.    It  was  proved  that  the  deplorable  state  in  which  the 


PIERRETTE.  145 

minor  now  was  resulted  from  the  neglect  of  her  guardian, 
who  was  responsible  in  all  that  related  to  his  ward.  Pierrette's 
illness  had  struck  everybody,  even  persons  in  the  town  who 
did  not  know  the  family.  Thus  the  charge  of  cruelty  against 
Rogron  was  fully  sustained.  The  matter  would  be  made 
public. 

By  Vinet's  advice  Rogron  put  in  a  protest  against  the  con- 
firmation by  the  court  of  the  decision  of  the  family  council. 
The  minister  of  justice  now  intervened,  in  consequence  of 
the  increasingly  critical  condition  of  Pierrette  Lorrain.  This 
singular  case,  though  put  on  the  lists  forthwith,  did  not 
come  up  for  trial  till  near  the  month  of  March,  1828. 

By  that  time  the  marriage  of  Rogron  to  Mademoiselle  de 
Chargeboeuf  was  an  accomplished  fact.  Sylvie  was  living  on 
the  second  floor  of  the  house,  which  had  been  arranged  to 
accommodate  her  and  Madame  de  Chargeboeuf;  for  the  first 
floor  was  entirely  given  up  to  Madame  Rogron.  The  beau- 
tiful Madame  Rogron  now  succeeded  to  the  beautiful  Madame 
Tiphaine.  The  effect  of  this  marriage  was  enormous.  The 
town  no  longer  came  to  Mademoiselle  Sylvie's  salon,  but  to 
the  beautiful  Madame  Rogron's. 

Monsieur  Tiphaine,  the  president  of  the  Provins  court, 
pushed  by  his  mother-in-law  and  supported  by  du  Tillet  and  by 
Nucingen,  the  Royalist  bankers,  found  an  opportunity  of  being 
useful  to  the  ministry.  He  was  one  of  the  most  highly  re- 
spected speakers  of  the  Centre,  was  made  a  judge  of  the  lower 
court  in  the  Seine  district,  and  got  his  nephew,  Lesourd, 
nominated  president  in  his  place  at  Provins.  This  appoint- 
ment greatly  annoyed  Monsieur  Desfondrilles,  still  an  archae- 
ologist, and  more  supernumerary  than  ever.  The  keeper  of 
the  seals  sent  a  protege  of  his  own  to  fill  Lesourd's  place. 
Thus  Monsieur  Tiphaine's  promotion  did  not  lead  to  any 
advancement  in  the  legal  forces  at  Provins. 

Vinet  took  advantage  of  these  circumstances  very  cleverly. 
He  had  always  told  the  good  folks  of  Provins  that  they  were 
10 


146  THE   CELIBATES. 

only  serving  as  a  step-ladder  to  Madame  Tiphaine's  cunning 
and  ambition.  The  president  laughed  in  his  sleeve  at  his 
friends.  Madame  Tiphaine  secretly  disdained  the  town  of 
Provins ;  she  would  never  come  back  to  it. 

Monsieur  Tiphaine  pere  presently  died ;  his  son  inherited 
the  estate  of  Le  Fay,  and  sold  his  handsome  house  in  the 
upper  town  to  Monsieur  JuUiard.  This  sale  showed  how  little 
he  intended  to  come  back  to  Provins.  Vinet  was  right ! 
Vinet  had  been  a  true  prophet !  These  facts  had  no  little 
influence  on  the  action  relating  to  Rogron's  guardianship. 

The  horrible  martyrdom  so  brutally  inflicted  on  Pierrette 
by  two  imbecile  tyrants — which  led,  medically  speaking,  to 
her  being  subjected  by  Monsieur  Martener,  with  Bianchon's 
approval,  to  the  terrible  operation  of  trepanning ;  the  whole 
dreadful  drama,  reduced  to  judicial  statements,  was  left  among 
the  foul  medley  known  to  lawyers  as  outstanding  cases.  The 
action  dragged  on  through  the  delays  and  inextricable  intri- 
cacies of  "proceedings,"  constantly  checked  by  the  quibbles 
of  a  contemptible  lawyer,  while  the  calumniated  Pierrette 
languished  in  suffering  from  the  most  terrible  pains  known  to 
medical  science.  We  could  not  avoid  these  details  as  to  the 
strange  variations  in  public  opinion  and  the  slow  march  of 
justice  before  returning  to  the  room  where  she  was  living — 
where  she  was  dying. 

Monsieur  Martener  and  the  whole  of  the  Auffray  family 
were  in  a  very  few  days  completely  won  by  Pierrette's  adorable 
temper,  and  by  the  old  Bretonne,  whose,  feelings,  ideas,  and 
manners  bore  the  stamp  of  an  antique  Roman  type.  This 
matron  of  the  Marais  was  like  one  of  Plutarch's  women. 

The  doctor  desired  to  contend  with  death,  at  least,  for  his 
prey ;  for  from  the  first  the  Paris  and  the  provincial  physi- 
cians had  agreed  in  regarding  Pierrette  as  past  saving.  Then 
began  between  the  disease  and  the  doctor,  aided  by  Pierrette's 
youth,  one  of  those  struggles  which  medical  men  alone  know; 


PIERRETTE.  147 

the  reward,  in  the  event  of  success,  is  neither  in  the  pecuni- 
ary profit  nor  even  in  the  rescued  sufferer;  it  lies  in  sweet 
satisfaction  of  conscience,  and  in  a  sort  of  ideal  and  invisible 
palm  of  victory  gathered  by  every  true  artist  from  the  joyful 
certainty  of  having  achieved  a  fine  work.  The  physician 
makes  for  healing  as  the  artist  makes  for  the  beautiful,  urged 
on  by  a  noble  sentiment  which  we  call  virtue.  This  daily 
recurring  battle  had  extinguished  in  this  man,  though  a  pro- 
vincial, the  squalid  irritation  of  the  warfare  going  on  between 
the  Vinet  party  and  that  of  the  Tiphaines,  as  happens  with 
men  who  have  to  fight  it  out  with  great  suffering. 

Monsieur  Martener  had  at  first  wished  to  practice  his  profes- 
sion in  Paris;  but  the  activity  of  the  great  city,  the  callous- 
ness produced  at  last  in  a  doctor's  mind  by  the  terrific  number 
of  sick  people  and  a  multitude  of  serious  cases,  had  appalled 
his  gentle  soul,  which  was  made  for  a  country  life.  He  was 
in  bondage,  too,  to  his  pretty  birthplace.  So  he  had  come 
back  to  Provins  to  marry  and  settle  there,  and  take  almost 
tender  care  of  a  population  he  could  think  of  as  a  large  family. 
All  the  time  Pierrette  was  ill  he  could  not  bear  to  speak  of 
her  illness.  His  aversion  to  reply  when  any  one  asked  for 
news  of  the  poor  child  was  so  evident,  that  at  last  nobody 
questioned  him  about  her.  Pierrette  was  to  him  what  she 
could  not  help  being — one  of  those  deep,  mysterious  poems, 
immense  in  its  misery,  such  as  occur  in  the  terrible  life  of  a 
physician.  He  had  for  this  frail  girl  an  admiration  of  which 
he  would  betray  the  secret  to  no  one. 

This  feeling  for  his  patient  was  infectious,  as  all  true  senti- 
ments are ;  Monsieur  and  Madame  Auffray's  house,  so  long  as 
Pierrette  lived  in  it,  was  peaceful  and  still.  Even  the  chil- 
dren, who  of  old  had  such  famous  games  with  Pierrette,  un- 
derstood, with  childlike  grace,  that  they  were  not  to  be  noisy 
or  troublesome.  They  made  it  a  point  of  honor  to  be  good 
because  Pierrette  was  ill. 

Monsieur  Auffray's  house  is  in  the  upper  town,  below  the 


148  THE  CELIBATES. 

ruined  castle;  built,  indeed,  on  one  of  the  cliff-like  knolls 
formed  by  the  overthrow  of  the  old  ramparts.  From  there 
the  residents  have  a  view  over  the  valley  as  they  walk  in  a 
little  orchard  supported  by  the  thick  walls  rising  straight  up 
from  the  lower  town.  The  roofs  of  the  houses  rise  to  the 
level  of  the  wall  that  upholds  this  garden.  Along  this  terrace 
is  a  walk  ending  at  the  glass-door  of  Monsieur  Auffray's  study. 
At  the  other  end  are  a  vine-covered  arbor  and  a  fig-tree  shel- 
tering a  round  table,  a  bench,  and  some  chairs,  all  painted 
green. 

Pierrette  had  a  room  over  that  of  her  new  guardian. 
Madame  Lorrain  slept  there  on  a  camp-bed  by  her  grand- 
child's side.  From  her  window  Pierrette  could  see  the 
beautiful  valley  of  Provins,  which  she  hardly  knew — she  had 
so  rarely  been  out  of  the  Rogrons'  sinister  dwelling.  When- 
ever it  was  fine,  she  liked  to  drag  herself,  on  her  grand- 
mother's arm,  as  far  as  this  arbor.  Brigaut,  who  now  did  no 
work,  came  three  times  a  day  to  see  his  little  friend  ;  he  was 
absorbed  in  grief,  which  made  him  indifferent  to  life ;  he 
watched  for  Monsieur  Martener  with  the  eagerness  of  a 
spaniel,  always  went  in  with  him  and  came  out  with  him. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  all  the  follies  every  one  was 
ready  to  commit  for  the  dear  little  invalid.  Her  grand- 
mother, drunk  with  grief,  hid  her  despair;  she  showed  the 
child  the  same  smiling  face  as  at  Pen-Hoel.  In  her  wish  to 
delude  herself,  she  made  her  a  Breton  cap  such  as  Pierrette 
had  worn  when  she  came  to  Provins,  and  put  it  on  her  ;  the 
girl  then  looked  to  her  more  like  herself;  she  was  sweet  to 
behold,  with  her  face  framed  in  the  aureola  of  cambric  edged 
with  starched  lace.  Her  face,  as  white  as  fine  white  porce- 
lain, her  forehead  on  which  suffering  set  a  semblance  of  deep 
thoughtfulness,  the  purity  of  outline  refined  by  sickness,  the 
slowness  and  occasional  fixity  of  her  gaze,  all  made  Pierrette 
a  master-work  of  melancholy. 

The  child  was  waited  on  with  fanatical  devotion ;  she  was 


PIERRETTE.  149 

SO  tender,  so  loving,  Madame  Martener  had  sent  her  piano 
to  Madame  Auffray,  her  sister,  thinking  it  might  amuse  Pier- 
rette, to  whom  music  was  rapture.  It  was  a  poem  to  watch 
her  listening  to  a  piece  by  Weber,  Beethoven,  or  Herold,  her 
eyes  raised  to  heaven  in  silence,  regretting,  no  doubt,  the  life 
she  felt  slipping  from  her.  Monsieur  Peroux  the  cure  and 
Monsieur  Habert,  her  two  priestly  comforters,  admired  her 
pious  resignation. 

Is  it  not  a  strange  fact,  worthy  of  the  attention  alike  of 
philosophers  and  of  mere  observers,  that  a  sort  of  seraphic 
perfection  is  characteristic  of  youths  and  maidens  marked 
amid  the  crowd  with  the  red  cross  of  death,  like  saplings  in 
a  forest  ?  He  who  has  witnessed  such  a  death  can  never  re- 
main or  become  an  infidel.  These  beings  exhale,  as  it  were, 
a  heavenly  fragrance,  their  looks  speak  of  God,  their  voice  is 
eloquent  in  the  most  trivial  speech,  and  often  sounds  like  a 
divine  instrument,  expressing  the  secrets  of  futurity.  When 
Monsieur  Martener  congratulated  Pierrette  on  having  carried 
out  some  disagreeable  prescription,  this  angel  would  say  in  the 
presence  of  all,  and  with  what  a  look  ! — 

"I  wish  to  live,  dear  Monsieur  Martener,  less  for  my  own 
sake  than  for  my  grandmother's,  for  my  poor  Brigaut's,  and 
for  you  all,  who  will  be  sorry  when  I  die." 

The  first  time  she  took  a  walk,  in  the  month  of  November, 
under  a  bright  Martinmas  sun,  escorted  by  all  the  family, 
Madame  Auffray  asked  her  if  she  were  tired. 

"  Now  that  I  have  nothing  to  bear  but  the  pain  God  sends 
me,  I  can  endure  it.  I  find  strength  to  bear  suffering  in  the 
joy  of  being  loved." 

Thi?  was  the  only  time  she  ever  alluded,  even  so  remotely, 
to  her  horrible  martyrdom  at  the  Rogrons ;  she  never  spoke 
of  them  ;  and  as  the  remembrance  could  not  fail  to  be  pain- 
ful, no  one  mentioned  their  name. 

"  Dear  Madame  Auffray, "  said  she  one  day  at  noon  on  the 
terrace,  while  gazing  at  the  valley  lighted  up  by  brilliant  sun- 


150  THE   CELIBATES. 

shine  and  dressed  in  the  russet  tints  of  autumn,  "my  dying 
days  in  your  house  will  have  brought  me  more  happiness  than 
all  the  three  years  before." 

Madame  Auffray  looked  at  her  sister,  Madame  Martener, 
and  said  to  her  in  a  whisper : 

"  How  she  would  have  loved  !  " 

And,  indeed,  Pierrette's  tone  and  look  gave  her  words 
unutterable  meaning. 

Monsieur  Martener  kept  up  a  correspondence  with  Doctor 
Bianchon,  and  tried  no  serious  treatment  without  his  approba- 
tion. He  hoped  first  to  restore  the  girl  to  normal  health, 
and  then  to  enable  the  abscess  to  discharge  itself  through  the 
ear.  The  more  acute  her  pain  was,  the  more  hopeful  he  felt. 
With  regard  to  the  first  point  he  had  some  success,  and  that 
was  a  great  triumph.  For  some  days  Pierrette  recovered  her 
appetite,  and  could  satisfy  it  with  substantial  food,  for  which 
her  unhealthy  state  had  hitherto  given  her  great  aversion  ;  her 
color  improved,  but  the  pain  in  her  head  was  terrible.  The 
doctor  now  begged  the  great  physician,  his  consultee,  to  come 
to  Provins.  Bianchon  came,  stayed  two  days,  and  advised 
an  operation ;  he  threw  himself  into  all  poor  Martener's 
anxiety,  and  went  himself  to  fetch  the  famous  Desplein.  So 
the  operation  was  performed  by  the  greatest  surgeon  of  an- 
cient or  modern  times ;  but  this  terrible  augur  said  to  Mar- 
tener as  he  went  away  with  Bianchon,  his  best-beloved  pupil : 

"  You  can  save  her  only  by  a  miracle.  As  Horace  has  told 
you,  necrosis  has  set  in.  At  that  age  the  bones  are  still  so 
tender." 

The  operation  was  performed  early  in  March,  1828.  All 
that  month  Monsieur  Martener,  alarmed  by  the  fearful  tor- 
ments Pierrette  endured,  made  several  journeys  to  Paris  ;  he 
consulted  Desplein  and  Bianchon,  to  whom  he  even  suggested 
a  treatment  resembling  that  known  as  lithotrity — the  insertion 
of  a  tubular  instrument  into  the  skull,  by  which  a  heroic 
remedy  might  be  introduced  to  arrest  the  progress  of  decay 


PIERRETTE.  151 

The  daring  Desplein  dared  not  attempt  this  surgical  feat, 
which  only  despair  had  suggested  to  Martener  as  a  last  resort 
to  save  Pierrette. 

When  the  doctor  returned  from  his  last  journey  to  Paris, 
his  friends  thought  him  crestfallen  and  gloomy.  One  fatal 
evening  he  was  compelled  to  announce  to  the  Auffray  family, 
to  Madame  Lorrain,  to  the  confessor,  and  to  Brigaut,  who 
were  all  present,  that  science  could  do  no  more  for  Pierrette, 
that  her  life  was  in  the  hands  of  God  alone.  Her  grand- 
mother took  a  vow  and  begged  the  cure  to  say,  every  morn- 
ing at  daybreak,  before  Pierrette  rose,  a  mass  which  she  and 
Brigaut  would  attend. 

The  case  came  up  for  trial.  While  the  Rogrons'  victim 
lay  dying,  Vinet  was  calumniating  her  to  the  court.  The 
court  ratified  the  decision  of  the  family  council,  and  the 
lawyer  immediately  appealed.  The  newly  appointed  public 
prosecutor  delivered  an  address  which  led  to  an  inquiry. 
Rogron  and  his  sister  were  obliged  to  find  sureties  to  avoid 
being  sent  to  prison.  The  inquiry  necessitated  the  examina- 
tion of  Pierrette  herself.  When  Monsieur  Desfondrilles  went 
to  the  Auffrays'  house,  Pierrette,  was  actually  dying ;  the 
priest  was  at  her  bedside,  and  she  was  about  to  take  the  last 
sacrament.  At  that  moment  she  was  entreating  all  the  assem- 
bled family  to  forgive  her  cousins  as  she  herself  forgave  them, 
saying,  with  excellent  good-sense,  that  judgment  in  such  cases 
belonged  to  God  alone. 

"Grandmother,"  said  she,  "leave  all  you  possess  to  Bri- 
gaut"— Brigaut  melted  into  tears — "and,"  Pierrette  went 
on,  "  give  a  thousand  francs  to  good  Ad^le,  who  used  to 
warm  my  bed  on  the  sly.  If  she  had  stayed  with  my  cou- 
sins, I  should  be  alive " 

It  was  at  three  o'clock  on  Easter  Tuesday,  on  a  beautiful 
day,  that  this  little  angel  ceased  to  suffer.  Her  heroical 
grandmother  insisted  on  sitting  by  her  all  night  with  the 
priests  and  on  sewing  the  winding-sheet  on  her  with  her  old 


152  THE    CELIBATES. 

hands.     Towards  evening  Brigaut  left  the  house  and  went 
back  to  Frappier's. 

"I  need  not  ask  you  the  news,  my  poor  boy,"  said  the 
carpenter, 

"  Pere  Frappier — yes  ;  it  is  all  over  with  her,  and  not  with 
me!" 

The  apprentice  looked  round  the  workshop  at  all  the  wood 
store  with  gloomy  but  keen  eyes. 

"I understand,  Brigaut,"  said  the  worthy  Frappier.  "There, 
that  is  what  you  want,"  and  he  pointed  to  some  two-inch  oak 
planks. 

"Do  not  help  me.  Monsieur  Frappier,"  said  the  Breton. 
**I  will  do  it  all  myself." 

Brigaut  spent  the  night  in  planing  and  joining  Pierrette's 
coffin,  and  more  than  once  he  ripped  off  with  one  stroke  a 
long  shaving  wet  with  his  tears.  His  friend  Frappier  smoked 
and  watched  him.  He  said  nothing  to  him  but  these  few 
words  when  his  man  put  the  four  sides  together — 

"  Make  the  lid  to  slide  in  a  groove,  then  her  poor  friends 
will  not  hear  you  nail  it  down." 

At  daybreak  Brigaut  went  for  lead  to  line  the  coffin.  By  a 
singular  coincidence  the  sheets  of  lead  cost  exactly  the  sum 
he  had  given  to  Pierrette  for  her  journey  from  Nantes  to 
Provins.  The  brave  Breton,  who  had  borne  up  under  the 
dreadful  pain  of  making  a  coffin  for  the  beloved  companion 
of  his  childhood,  overlaying  each  funereal  board  with  all  his 
memories,  could  not  endure  this  coincidence;  he  turned  faint 
and  could  not  carry  the  lead  ;  the  plumber  accompanied  him, 
and  offered  to  go  with  him  and  solder  down  the  top  sheet  as 
soon  as  the  body  should  be  laid  in  the  coffin. 

The  Breton  burned  his  plane  and  all  the  tools  he  had  used 
for  the  work,  he  wound  up  his  accounts  with  Frappier,  and 
bade  him  good-by. 

The  heroism  which  enabled  the  poor  fellow,  like  the  grand- 


PIERRETTE.  153 

mother,  to  busy  himself  with  doing  the  last  services  to  the 
dead,  led  to  his  intervening  in  the  crowning  scene  which  put 
a  climax  to  the  Rogrons'  tyranny. 

Brigaut  and  the  plumber  arrived  at  Monsieur  Auffray's  just 
in  time  to  decide  by  brute  force  a  horrible  and  shameful  legal 
question.  The  chamber  of  the  dead  was  full  of  people,  and 
presented  a  strange  scene  to  the  two  workmen.  The  Rogrons 
stood  hideous  by  the  victim's  corpse  to  torture  it  even  in 
death.  The  body  of  the  poor  girl,  sublime  in  its  beauty,  lay 
on  her  grandmother's  camp-bed.  Pierrette's  eyes  were  closed, 
her  hair  smoothly  braided,  her  body  sewn  into  a  winding-sheet 
of  coarse  cotton. 

By  this  bed,  her  hair  in  disorder,  on  her  knees,  with  out- 
stretched hands  and  a  flaming  face,  old  Madame  Lorrain  was 
crying  out — 

"  No,  no ;  it  shall  never  be  !  " 

At  the  foot  of  the  bed  were  the  guardian  Monsieur  Auffray, 
the  Cure  Monsieur  Peroux,  and  Monsieur  Habert.  Tapers 
were  still  burning.  Opposite  the  grandmother  stood  the  hos- 
pital surgeon,  and  Monsieur  Neraud,  supported  by  the  smooth- 
tongued and  formidable  Vinet.  A  registrar  was  present.  The 
surgeon  had  on  his  dissecting  apron  ;  one  of  his  assistants 
had  opened  his  roll  of  instruments  and  was  handing  him  a 
scalpel. 

This  scene  was  disturbed  by  the  noise  made  by  the  fall  of 
the  coffin,  which  Brigaut  and  the  plumber  dropped ;  and  by 
Brigaut  himself,  who,  entering  first,  was  seized  with  horror 
on  seeing  old  Madame  Lorrain  in  tears  and  the  significant 
actions  of  the  intruders. 

"  What  is  the  matter?  "  asked  Brigaut,  placing  himself  by 
her  side,  and  convulsively  clutching  a  chisel  he  had  brought 
with  him. 

"The  matter!"  said  the  old  woman.  "They  want  to 
open  my  grandchild's  body,  to  split  her  skull — to  rend  her 
heart  after  her  death  as  they  did  in  her  lifetime  !  " 


154  THE    CELIBATES. 

"Who?"  said  Brigaut,  in  a  voice  to  crack  the  drum  of 
the  lawyer's  ears. 

"The  Rogrons." 

"  By  the  God  above  us  ! " 

*'  One  moment,  Brigaut,"  said  Monsieur  Auffray,  seeing  the 
Breton  brandish  his  chisel. 

"  Monsieur  Auffray,"  said  Brigaut,  as  pale  as  the  dead 
girl,  "  I  listen  to  you  because  you  are  Monsieur  Auffray.  But 
at  this  moment  I  would  not  listen  to " 

"  Justice  !  "  Auffray  put  in. 

**  Is  there  such  a  thing  as  justice?"  cried  Brigaut  in  a 
quick  and  excited  tone. 

"That — that  is  justice!"  he  went  on,  threatening  the 
lawyer,  the  surgeon,  and  the  clerk  with  his  chisel  that  flashed 
in  the  sunlight. 

"My  good  fellow,"  said  the  cure,  "Monsieur  Rogron's 
lawyer  has  appealed  to  justice.  His  client  lies  under  a  serious 
accusation,  and  it  is  impossible  to  refuse  a  suspected  person 
the  means  of  clearing  himself.  According  to  Monsieur 
Rogron's  advocate,  if  this  poor  child  died  of  the  abscess  on 
the  brain,  her  former  guardian  must  be  regarded  as  guiltless ; 
for  it  is  proved  that  Pierrette  for  a  long  time  concealed  the 
blow  she  had  given  herself " 

"  That  will  do  !  "  said  Brigaut. 

"  My  client "  Vinet  began. 

"  Your  client,"  cried  the  Breton,  "  shall  go  to  hell,  and  I 
to  the  scaffold ;  for  if  one  of  you  makes  an  attempt  to  touch 
her  whom  your  client  killed — if  that  sawbones  does  not  put 
his  knife  away,  I  will  strike  him  dead." 

"This  is  overt  resistance,"  said  Vinet;  "we  shall  lay  it 
before  the  court." 

The  five  strangers  withdrew. 

"Oh,  my  son!"  said  the  old  woman,  starting  up  and 
throwing  her  arms  round  Brigaut's  neck,  "  let  us  bury  her  at 
once;  they  will  come  back." 


PIERRETTE.  155 

"  When  once  the  lead  is  soldered,"  said  the  plumber, 
"perhaps  they  will  not  dare." 

Monsieur  Auffray  hurried  off  to  his  brother-in-law.  Mon- 
sieur Lesourd,  to  try  to  get  this  matter  settled.  Vinet  wished 
for  nothing  better.  Pierrette  once  dead,  the  action  as  to  the 
guardianship,  which  was  not  yet  decided,  must  die  a  natural 
death,  without  any  possibility  of  argument  either  for  or 
against  the  Rogrons ;  the  question  remained  an  open  one. 
So  the  shrewd  lawyer  had  perfectly  foreseen  the  effect  his 
demand  would  produce. 

At  noon  Monsieur  Desfondrilles  reported  to  the  bench  on 
the  inquiry  relating  to  the  Rogrons,  and  the  court  pronounced 
a  verdict  of  no  case,  on  self-evident  grounds. 

Rogron  dared  not  show  his  face  at  Pierrette's  funeral, 
though  all  the  town  was  present.  Vinet  tried  to  drag  him 
there  ;  but  the  ex-haberdasher  feared  the  excitement  of  uni- 
versal reprobation. 

Brigaut,  after  seeing  the  grave  filled  up  in  which  Pierrette 
was  laid,  left  Provins  and  went  on  foot  to  Paris.  He  addressed 
a  petition  to  the  Dauphiness  to  be  allowed,  in  consideration 
of  his  father's  name,  to  enlist  in  the  Royal  Guard,  and  was  soon 
afterwards  enrolled.  When  an  expedition  was  fitted  out  for 
Algiers,  he  again  wrote  to  the  Dauphiness,  begging  to  be 
ordered  on  active  service.  He  was  then  sergeant  ;  Marshal 
Bourmount  made  him  sub-lieutenant  of  the  line.  The  major's 
son  behaved  like  a  man  seeking  death.  But  death  has  hitherto 
respected  Jacques  Brigaut,  who  has  distinguished  himself  in 
all  the  recent  expeditions  without  being  once  wounded.  He 
is  now  at  the  head  of  a  battalion  in  the  line.  There  is  not  a 
more  taciturn  or  a  better  officer.  Off  duty  he  is  speechless, 
walks  alone,  and  lives  like  a  machine.  Every  one  under- 
stands and  respects  some  secret  sorrow.  He  has  forty-six 
thousand  francs,  left  him  by  old  Madame  Lorrain,  who  died 
in  Paris  in  1829. 

Vinet  was  elected  deputy  in  1830,  and  the  services  he  has 


156  THE   CELIBATES. 

rendered  to  the  new  government  have  earned  him  the  place 
of  prosecutor-general.  His  influence  is  now  so  great  that  he 
will  always  be  returned  as  deputy.  Rogron  is  receiver-general 
in  the  town  where  Vinet  exercises  his  high  functions,  and  by 
a  singular  coincidence  Monsieur  Tiphaine  is  the  chief  presi- 
dent of  the  supreme  court  there  ;  for  the  judge  unhesitatingly 
attached  himself  to  the  new  dynasty  of  July.  The  ex-beau- 
tiful Madame  Tiphaine  lives  on  very  good  terms  with  the 
beautiful  Madame  Rogron.  Vinet  and  President  Tiphaine 
agree  perfectly. 

As  to  Rogron,  utterly  stupid,  he  says  such  things  as  this  : 

**  Louis  Philippe  will  never  be  really  king  till  he  can  create 
nobles." 

This  speech  is  obviously  not  his  own. 

His  failing  health  allows  Madame  Rogron  to  hope  that  ere 
long  she  may  be  free  to  marry  General  the  Marquis  de  Mon- 
triveau,  a  peer  of  France,  who  is  governor  of  the  depart- 
ment, and  attentive  to  her.  Vinet  is  always  in  a  hurry  to 
condemn  a  man  to  death  ;  he  never  believes  in  the  innocence 
of  the  accused.  This  man,  born  to  be  a  public  prosecutor, 
is  considered  one  of  the  most  amiable  men  of  his  district, 
and  is  not  less  successful  in  Paris  and  in  the  Chamber ;  at 
court  he  is  the  exquisite  courtier. 

General  Baron  Gouraud,  that  noble  relic  of  our  glorious 
armies,  has  married — as  Vinet  promised  that  he  should — a 
Demoiselle  Matifat,  five-and-twenty  years  of  age,  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  druggist  in  the  Rue  des  Lombards,  who  had  a  for- 
tune of  fifty  thousand  crowns.  He  is  governor — as  Vinet 
prophesied — of  a  department  close  to  Paris.  He  was  made 
a  peer  of  France  as  the  reward  of  his  conduct  in  the  riots 
under  Casimir  Perier's  ministry.  Baron  Gouraud  was  one  of 
the  generals  who  took  the  church  of  Saint-Merry,  delighted 
to  "  rap  the  knuckles  "  of  the  civilians  who  had  bullied  them 
for  fifteen  years ;  and  his  iseal  won  him  the  grand  cordon  of 
the  Legion  of  Honor. 


PIERRETTE.  157 

None  of  those  who  were  implicated  in  Pierrette's  death 
have  any  remorse.  Monsieur  Desfondrilles  is  still  an  archae- 
ologist ;  but,  to  promote  his  own  election,  Attorney-General 
Vinet  took  care  to  have  him  appointed  president  of  the 
court.  Sylvie  holds  a  little  court  and  manages  her  brother's 
affairs ;  she  lends  at  high  interest,  and  does  not  spend  more 
than  twelve  hundred  francs  a  year. 

From  time  to  time,  in  the  little  square,  when  some  son  of 
Provins  comes  home  from  Paris  to  settle  there,  and  is  seen 
coming  out  of  Mademoiselle  Rogron's  house,  some  former 
partisan  of  the  Tiphaines  will  say,  "  The  Rogrons  had  a  very 
sad  affair  once  about  a  ward " 

"A  mere  party  question,"  President  Desfondrilles  replies. 
"Monstrous  tales  were  given  out.  Out  of  kindness  of  heart 
they  took  this  little  Pierrette  to  live  with  them,  a  nice  child 
enough,  without  a  penny ;  just  as  she  was  growing  up  she  had 
some  intrigue  with  a  joiner's  apprentice,  and  would  come  to 
her  window  barefoot  to  talk  to  the  lad,  who  used  to  stand  just 
there,  do  you  see  ?  The  lovers  sent  each  other  notes  by 
means  of  a  string.  As  you  may  suppose,  in  her  state,  and  in 
the  months  of  October  and  November,  that  was  quite  enough 
to  upset  a  little  pale-faced  girl.  The  Rogrons  behaved  admir- 
ably; they  never  claimed  their  share  of  the  child's  inher- 
itance ;  they  gave  everything  to  the  grandmother.  The 
moral  of  it  all,  my  friends,  is  that  the  devil  always  punishes 
us  for  a  good  action." 

"Oh  !  this  is  quite  another  story;  old  Frappier  told  it  in 
a  very  different  way  !  " 

"Old  Frappier  consults  his  cellar  more  than  his  memory," 
remarked  a  frequenter  of  Mademoiselle  Rogron's  drawing- 
room. 

"  But  then  old  Monsieur  Habert " 

"  Oh  !  you  know  about  his  share  in  the  matter?  "  rejoined 
Desfondrilles. 

"No." 


168  THE   CELIBATES. 

*'  Why,  he  wanted  to  get  his  sister  married  to  Monsieur 
Rogron,  the  receiver-general." 

Two  men  daily  think  of  Pierrette — Doctor  Martener  and 
Major  Brigaut,  who  alone  know  the  terrible  truth. 

To  give  that  truth  immense  proportions,  it  is  enough  to  re- 
call the  fact  that  if  we  change  the  scene  to  the  middle  ages, 
and  to  the  vast  theatre  of  Rome,  a  sublime  girl,  Beatrice 
Cenci,  was  dragged  to  the  scaffold  for  reasons  and  by  in- 
trigues almost  the  same  as  those  which  brought  Pierrette  to 
the  tomb.  Beatrice  Cenci  found  none  to  defend  her  but  an 
artist — a  painter.  And  to-day  history  and  living  people,  on 
the  evidence  of  Guido  Reni's  portrait,  condemn  the  pope, 
and  regard  Beatrice  as  one  of  the  most  pathetic  victims  of 
infamous  passions  and  factions. 

And  we  may  agree  that  the  law  would  be  a  fine  thing  for 
social  roguery,  if  there  were  no  God. 

November,  1830. 


n. 

THE  ABBE   BIROTTEAU. 
(J^e  Curi  de  Tours.') 
To  David,  Sculptor. 

The  duration  of  the  work  on  which  I  write  your 
natne — doubly  illustrious  in  our  age — is  most  uncer- 
tain, while  you  inscribe  mine  on  bronze,  which  outlives 
nations  even  when  stamped  only  by  the  vulgar  die  of 
the  coiner.  Will  not  numismatists  be  puzzled  by  the 
many  crowned  heads  in  your  studio,  when  they  find 
among  the  ashes  of  Paris  these  lives,  prolonged  by  you 
beyond  the  life  of  nations,  in  which  they  will  fancy 
they  discover  dynasties  ?  Yours  is  this  divine  preroga- 
tive— mine  be  the  gratitude. 

De  Balzac. 

In  the  early  autumn  of  1826  the  Abbe  Birotteau,  the  prin- 
cipal personage  of  this  story,  was  caught  in  a  shower  on  his 
way  home  from  the  house  where  he  had  spent  the  evening. 
He  was  just  crossing,  as  fast  as  his  burly  weight  permitted,  a 
little  deserted  square  known  as  the  Close,  lying  behind  the 
apse  of  Saint-Gatien  at  Tours. 

The  Abbe  Birotteau,  a  short  man  of  apoplectic  build,  and 
now  sixty  years  of  age,  had  already  had  several  attacks  of 
gout.  Hence,  of  all  the  minor  miseries  of  human  life,  that 
which  the  worthy  man  held  in  most  horror  was  the  sudden 
wetting  of  his  shoes  with  their  large  silver  buckles,  and  the 
immersion  of  their  soles.  In  fact,  notwithstanding  the  flan- 
nel lining  in  which  he  packed  his  feet  in  all  weathers,  with 

(159) 


160  THE  CELIBATES. 

the  care  a  priest  always  takes  of  himself,  they  often  got  a  little 
damp ;  then,  next  day,  the  gout  unfailingly  gave  him  proof 
of  its  constancy. 

However,  as  the  cobbles  in  the  Close  are  always  dry,  and 
as  the  abbe  had  won  three  francs  and  ten  sous  at  whist  from 
Madame  de  Listomere,  he  submitted  to  the  rain  with  resigna- 
tion from  the  middle  of  the  Place  de  rArchev6ch6,  where  it 
had  begun  to  fall  heavily.  Moreover,  at  this  moment  he  was 
brooding  over  his  chimera,  a  longing  already  twelve  years  old, 
a  priest's  day-dream  !  A  dream  which,  recurring  every  even- 
ing, now  seemed  likely  to  find  fulfillment ;  in  short,  he  was 
too  well  wrapped  in  the  fur  sleeves  of  a  canon's  robes  to  be 
sensitive  to  the  severities  of  the  weather.  In  the  course  of 
this  evening  the  accustomed  guests  who  met  at  Madame  de 
Listomere's  had  as  good  as  promised  him  a  nomination  to  the 
canon's  stall  at  present  vacant  in  the  metropolitan  chapter  of 
Saint-Gatien,  by  proving  to  him  that  no  one  better  deserved 
it  than  he,  whose  claims  were  indisputable,  though  so  long 
ignored.  If  he  had  lost  at  cards,  if  he  had  heard  that  the 
canonry  was  given  to  the  Abbe  Poirel,  his  rival,  the  good  man 
would  have  found  the  rain  very  cold  ;  he  might  have  abused 
life.  But  he  was  in  one  of  those  rare  moments  when  delight- 
ful sensations  make  us  forget  everything.  Tliough  he  hastened 
his  pace,  it  was  in  obedience  to  a  mechanical  impulse,  and 
truth— so  indispensable  in  a  tale  of  domestic  life — requires  us 
to  say  that  he  was  thinking  neither  of  the  shower  nor  of  the 
gout. 

There  were  formerly  round  this  Close,  on  the  side  by  the 
Grand'  Rue,  a  number  of  houses  standing  within  a  wall,  and 
belonging  to  the  cathedral,  inhabited  by  certain  dignitaries 
of  the  chapter.  Since  the  sequestration  of  ecclesiastical  prop- 
erty, the  town  has  taken  the  alley  dividing  these  houses  as  a 
public  way,  by  the  name  of  Rue  de  la  Psalette,  leading  from 
the  Close  to  the  High  Street.     The  name  itself  shows  that 


THE  ABBE   BIROTTEAU.  161 

here  formerly  dwelt  the  precentor  with  his  schools  and  those 
who  were  within  his  jurisdiction.  The  left  side  of  the  street 
is  formed  of  one  large  house,  its  garden  walls  being  bridged 
by  the  flying  buttresses  of  Saint-Gatien,  which  spring  from  the 
ground  of  its  strip  of  garden,  making  it  doubtful  whether  the 
cathedral  was  built  before  or  after  that  ancient  dwelling. 
But  by  examining  the  mouldings  and  the  shape  of  the  win- 
dows, the  arch  of  the  doorway,  and  the  external  architecture 
of  the  house,  darkened  by  time,  an  archaeologist  detects  that 
it  had  always  been  part  and  parcel  of  the  magnificent  church 
to  which  it  is  wedded.  An  antiquarian — if  there  were  one  at 
Tours,  one  of  the  least  literary  towns  of  France — might  even 
discern  at  the  entrance  to  the  passage  from  the  Close  some 
traces  of  the  covered  archway  which  of  old  served  as  an  entry 
to  these  priestly  dwellings,  and  which  must  have  harmonized 
in  character  with  the  main  edifice. 

This  house,  being  to  the  north  of  Saint-Gatien,  lies  always 
in  the  shadow  of  this  vast  cathedral,  on  which  time  has  cast 
its  gloomy  mantle,  stamped  wrinkles,  and  set  its  damp  chill, 
its  mosses,  and  straggling  weeds.  And  it  is  perennially 
wrapped  in  the  deepest  silence,  broken  only  by  the  tolling  of 
the  bells,  the  chanted  service  heard  through  the  cathedral 
walls,  or  the  cawing  of  jackdaws  nesting  at  the  top  of  the  bel- 
fries. The  spot  is  a  desert  of  masonry,  a  solitude  full  of  in- 
dividuality, in  which  none  could  dwell  but  beings  absolutely 
mindless,  or  gifted  with  immense  strength  of  soul. 

The  house  in  question  had  always  been  the  home  of  abbes, 
and  belonged  to  an  old  maid  named  Mademoiselle  Gamard. 
Although  during  the  Terror  the  property  had  been  bought 
from  the  nation  by  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  father,  as  the 
worthy  maiden  had  for  twenty  years  past  let  the  rooms  to 
priests,  no  one,  at  the  Restoration,  could  take  it  ill  that  a  bigot 
should  not  surrender  a  piece  of  national  property ;  religious 
persons  may  have  supposed  that  she  meant  to  bequeath  it  to 
the  chapter,  and  the  worldly  saw  no  change  in  its  uses. 
11 


162  THE   CELIBATES. 

It  was  to  this  house,  then,  that  the  Abbe  Birotteau  was 
making  his  way ;  he  had  lived  in  it  for  two  years.  His  roonas 
there  had  been  till  then,  as  the  canonry  was  now,  the  object 
of  his  desires,  and  his  hoc  erat  in  votis  for  a  dozen  years  before. 
To  board  with  Mademoiselle  Gamard  and  to  be  made  a  canon 
were  the  two  great  aims  of  his  life ;  and  perhaps  they  com- 
pletely sum  up  the  ambitions  of  a  priest  who,  regarding  him- 
self as  a  pilgrim  to  eternity,  can  in  this  world  wish  for  no 
more  than  a  good  room,  a  good  table,  clean  clothes,  shoes 
with  silver  buckles — all-sufficient  for  his  animal  needs — and  a 
canonry  to  satisfy  his  pride,  the  indefinable  feeling  which 
will  accompany  us,  no  doubt,  into  the  presence  of  God,  since 
there  are  grades  of  rank  among  the  saints  in  the  heavenly 
mansions. 

But  the  Abb6  Birotteau's  desire  for  the  rooms  he  now 
occupied,  so  trivial  a  feeling  in  the  eyes  of  the  worldly  wise, 
had  been  to  him  a  perfect  passion,  a  passion  full  of  obstacles, 
and,  like  the  most  criminal  passions,  full  of  hopes,  joys,  and 
remorse. 

The  arrangements  and  space  in  her  house  did  not  allow 
Mademoiselle  Gamard  to  take  more  than  two  resident  board- 
ers. Now,  about  twelve  years  before  the  day  when  Birotteau 
went  to  lodge  with  this  maiden  lady,  she  had  undertaken  to 
preserve  in  health  and  contentment  Monsieur  I'Abbe  Troubert 
and  Monsieur  I'Abbe  Chapeloud.  The  Abbe  Troubert  still 
lived,  the  Abb6  Chapeloud  was  dead,  and  Birotteau  had  been 
his  immediate  successor. 

The  late  Abb6  Chapeloud,  in  his  lifetime  canon  of  Saint- 
Gatien,  had  been  the  Abbe  Birotteau's  intimate  friend. 
Every  time  the  priest  had  gone  into  the  canon's  rooms  he 
had  unfailingly  admired  them,  the  furniture,  and  the  books. 
This  admiration  one  day  gave  birth  to  a  desire  to  possess 
these  fine  things.  The  Abbe  Birotteau  had  found  it  impos- 
sible to  smother  this  desire,  M'hich  often  made  him  dreadfully 
unhappy  when  he  reflected  that  only  the  death  of  his  best 


THE  ABB£  BIROTTEAU.  163 

friend  could  satisfy  this  hidden  covetousness,  which  never- 
theless constantly  increased. 

The  Abbe  Chapeloud  and  his  friend  Birotteau  were  not 
rich.  Both  sons  of  peasants,  they  had  nothing  but  the  poor 
emolument  doled  out  to  priests,  and  their  small  savings  had 
been  spent  in  tiding  over  the  evil  days  of  the  Revolution. 
When  Napoleon  re-established  Catholic  worship,  the  Abbe 
Chapeloud  was  made  canon  of  Saint-Gatien,  and  the  Abbe 
Birotteau  became  vicar,  or  mass-priest,  of  the  cathedral. 
It  was  then  that  Chapeloud  went  to  board  with  Mademoiselle 
Gamard.  When  Birotteau  first  called  on  the  canon  in  his 
new  residence,  he  thought  the  rooms  delightfully  arranged, 
but  that  was  all.  The  beginnings  of  this  concupiscence  for 
furniture  were  like  those  of  a  real  passion  in  a  young  man, 
which  often  at  first  is  no  more  than  cold  admiration  of  the 
woman  he  subsequently  loves  for  ever. 

These  rooms,  reached  by  a  stone  staircase,  were  on  the  side 
of  the  house  looking  south.  The  Abbe  Troubert  inhabited 
the  first  floor,  and  Mademoiselle  Gamard  the  second  floor  of 
the  main  front  to  the  street.  When  Chapeloud  went  in,  the 
rooms  were  bare  and  the  ceilings  blackened  by  smoke.  The 
chimney  fronts,  clumsily  carved  in  stone,  had  never  been 
painted.  All  the  furniture  the  poor  canon  could  at  first  put 
in  consisted  of  a  bed,  a  table,  some  chairs,  and  his  few  books. 
The  apartment  was  like  a  fine  woman  in  rags. 

But  two  or  three  years  later,  an  old  lady  having  left  the 
Abbe  Chapeloud  two  thousand  francs,  he  laid  out  the  money 
in  the  purchase  of  an  oak  bookcase,  saved  from  the  destruc- 
tion of  an  old  chateau  pulled  down  by  the  Black  Band  (a 
company  who  bought  old  buildings  to  demolish),  and  re- 
markable for  carvings  worthy  of  the  admiration  of  artists. 
The  abbe  made  the  purchase,  fascinated  less  by  its  cheapness 
than  by  its  exact  correspondence  in  size  with  the  dimensions 
of  his  corridor.  His  savings  then  allowed  him  completely  to 
restore  this  corridor,  until  now  abandoned  to  neglect.     The 


164  7 HE   CELIBATES. 

floor  was  carefully  waxed,  the  ceiling  white-washed,  the  wood- 
work painted  and  grained  to  imitate  the  tone  and  knots  of 
oak.  A  marble  chimney-shelf  replaced  the  old  one.  The 
canon  had  taste  enough  to  hunt  up  and  find  some  old  arm- 
chairs of  carved  walnut-wood.  Then  a  long  ebony  table  and 
two  little  Boulle  cabinets  gave  this  library  a  finish  full  of 
character. 

Within  two  years,  the  liberality  of  various  devout  persons, 
and  the  bequests  of  pious  penitents,  though  small,  had  filled 
the  shelves  of  the  bookcase  hitherto  vacant.  Finally,  an 
uncle  of  Chapeloud's,  an  old  oratorian,  left  him  his  collec- 
tion in  folio  of  the  "Fathers  of  the  Church,"  and  several 
other  large  works  of  value  to  an  ecclesiastic. 

Birotteau,  more  and  more  surprised  by  the  successive  trans- 
formations in  this  formerly  bare  corridor,  by  degrees  became 
involuntarily  covetous.  He  longed  to  possess  this  study,  so 
perfectly  adapted  to  the  gravity  of  priestly  habits.  This 
passion  grew  day  by  day.  Spending  whole  days,  as  he  often 
did,  in  working  in  this  snuggery,  he  could  appreciate  the 
silence  and  peace  of  it,  after  having  at  first  admired  its  com- 
fortable arrangement.  For  the  next  few  years  the  Abbe 
Chapeloud  used  this  retreat  as  an  oratory  which  his  lady 
friends  delighted  to  embellish.  Later,  again,  a  lady  pre- 
sented to  the  canon  a  piece  of  furniture  in  worsted-work  for 
his  bedroom,  at  which  she  had  long  been  stitching  under  the 
amiable  priest's  eyes  without  his  suspecting  its  purpose.  Then 
Birotteau  was  as  much  dazzled  by  the  bedroom  as  by  the 
library. 

Finally,  three  years  before  his  death,  the  Abbe  Chapeloud 
had  completed  the  comfort  of  his  rooms  by  decorating  the 
drawing-room.  Though  simply  furnished  with  red  Utrecht 
velvet,  this  had  been  too  much  for  Birotteau.  From  the  day 
when  the  canon's  friend  first  saw  the  red  silk  curtains,  the 
mahogany  furniture,  the  Aubusson  carpet  that  graced  this 
large  room,  freshly  painted,  Chapeloud's  apartment  became 


THE  ABBA  BIEOTTEAU.  166 

to  him  the  object  of  a  secret  monomania.  To  live  there,  to 
sleep  in  the  great  bed  with  silk  curtains  in  which  the  canon 
slept,  and  have  all  his  comforts  about  him  as  Chapeloud  had, 
seemed  to  Birotteau  perfect  happiness  j  he  looked  for  nothing 
beyond.  Every  feeling  which  envy  and  ambition  arouse  in 
the  souls  of  other  men  was,  in  that  of  the  Abbe  Birotteau, 
centred  in  the  deep  and  secret  longing  with  which  he  wished 
for  a  home  like  that  created  for  himself  by  the  Abbe  Chape- 
loud. When  his  friend  fell  ill,  it  was  no  doubt  sincere  affec- 
tion that  brought  Birotteau  to  see  him  ;  but  on  first  hearing 
of  the  canon's  sickness,  and  while  sitting  with  him,  there  rose 
from  the  depths  of  his  soul  a  thousand  thoughts,  of  which  the 
simplest  formula  was  always  this,  "  If  Chapeloud  dies,  I  can 
have  his  rooms."  Still,  as  Birotteau  had  a  good  heart,  strict 
principles,  and  a  narrow  intellect,  he  never  went  so  far  as  to 
conceive  of  means  for  getting  his  friend  to  leave  him  his 
library  and  furniture. 

The  Abbe  Chapeloud,  an  amiable  and  indulgent  egoist, 
guessed  his  friend's  mania — which  it  was  not  difficult  to  do, 
and  forgave  it — which  for  a  priest  would  seem  less  easy. 
Still,  Birotteau,  whose  friendship  remained  unaltered,  never 
ceased  to  walk  day  after  day  with  the  canon  up  and  down  the 
same  path  in  the  mall  at  Tours  without  curtailing  by  a  single 
minute  the  time  devoted  to  this  exercise  for  the  last  twenty 
years.  Birotteau  thought  of  his  involuntary  wishes  as  sins, 
and  would  have  been  capable,  in  sheer  contrition,  of  the 
utmost  devotion  for  Chapeloud's  sake. 

The  canon  paid  his  debt  to  this  sincere  and  artless  brother- 
liness  by  saying,  a  few  days  before  his  death,  to  the  priest, 
who  was  reading  to  him  from  the  Quotidienne,  *'  You  will  get 
the  rooms  this  time.     I  feel  that  it  is  all  over  with  me." 

In  fact,  by  his  will,  the  Abbe  Chapeloud  left  his  library 
and  furniture  to  Birotteau.  The  possession  of  these  much- 
longed-for  things,  and  the  prospect  of  being  taken  as  a  boarder 
by  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  greatly  softened  Birotteau's  grief 


Ifi6  THE   CELIBATES. 

at  the  loss  of  his  friend  the  canon.  He  would  not  perhaps 
have  called  him  to  life  again,  but  he  wept  for  him.  For  sev- 
eral days  he  was  like  Gargantua,  whose  wife  died  in  giving 
birth  to  Pantagruel,  and  who  knew  not  whether  to  rejoice 
over  his  son's  birth  or  to  lament  at  having  buried  his  good 
Badebec,  and  made  the  mistake  of  rejoicing  at  his  wife's  death 
and  deploring  the  birth  of  Pantagruel. 

The  Abbd  Birotteau  spent  the  first  days  of  his  grief  in  veri- 
fying the  volumes  of  his  library  and  enjoying  the  use  of  his 
furniture,  examining  them,  and  saying  in  a  tone  which,  un- 
fortunately, could  not  be  recorded,  "  Poor  Chapeloud  !  "  In 
short,  his  joy  and  his  grief  were  so  absorbing  that  he  felt  no 
distress  at  seeing  the  canonry  bestowed  on  another,  though 
the  lamented  Chapeloud  had  always  hoped  that  Birotteau 
might  be  his  successor.  Mademoiselle  Gamard  received  the 
abbe  with  pleasure  as  a  boarder,  and  he  thus  enjoyed  thence- 
forth all  the  delights  of  material  existence  that  the  deceased 
canon  had  so  highly  praised. 

Incalculable  advantages !  For,  to  hear  the  late  departed 
Canon  Chapeloud,  not  one  of  the  priests  who  dwelt  in  the 
town  of  Tours,  not  even  the  archbishop  himself,  could  be  the 
object  of  care  so  delicate  or  so  precise  as  that  lavished  by 
Mademoiselle  Gamard  on  her  two  boarders.  The  first  words 
spoken  by  the  canon  to  his  friend  as  they  walked  in  the  mall 
had  almost  always  referred  to  the  excellent  dinner  he  had  just 
eaten;  and  it  was  a  rare  thing  if,  in  the  course  of  the  seven 
walks  they  took  in  the  week,  he  did  not  happen  to  say  at  least 
fourteen  times,  "  That  good  woman  has  certainly  a  vocation 
for  taking  charge  of  the  priesthood." 

"Only  think,"  said  the  canon  to  Birotteau,  "for  twelve 
successive  years  clean  linen,  albs,  surplices,  bands — nothing 
has  ever  been  missing.  I  always  find  everything  in  its  place 
and  in  sufficient  numbers,  all  smelling  of  orris-root.  My 
furniture  is  constantly  polished  and  so  well  wiped  that  for  a 
long  time  past  I  have  not  known  what  dust  means.     Did  you 


THE  ABBJk  BIROTTEAU.  167 

ever  see  a  speck  in  my  rooms  ?  Then  the  fire-logs  are  well 
chosen,  the  smallest  things  are  all  good  ;  in  short,  it  is  as  if 
Mademoiselle  Gamard  always  had  an  eye  on  my  room.  I 
cannot  recollect  in  ten  years  ever  having  had  to  ring  twice  for 
anything  whatever.  That  I  call  living !  never  to  have  to  look 
for  a  thing,  not  even  for  one's  slippers ;  always  to  find  a  good 
fire  and  a  good  table.  Once  my  bellows  put  me  out,  the 
nozzle  had  gotten  burnt ;  I  had  not  to  complain  twice.  The 
very  next  day  mademoiselle  had  bought  me  a  nice  pair  of 
bellows  and  the  pair  of  tongs  you  see  me  use  to  put  the  fire 
together." 

Birotteau's  only  reply  was,  "  Smelling  of  orris-root  1  "  That 
smelling  of  orris-root  always  struck  him.  The  canon's  words 
painted  a  really  ideal  state  of  happiness  to  the  poor  priest 
whose  bands  and  albs  nearly  turned  his  brain  ;  for  he  had  no 
sense  of  order,  and  not  unfrequently  forgot  to  bespeak  his  din- 
ner. And  so,  whenever  he  caught  sight  of  Mademoiselle  Ga- 
mard at  Saint-Gatien,  either  while  going  round  for  the  offertory 
or  while  reading  mass,  he  never  failed  to  give  her  a  gentle  and 
kindly  glance  such  as  Saint  Theresa  may  have  raised  to  heaven. 

Though  the  comfort  which  every  creature  desires,  and  of 
which  he  had  so  often  dreamed,  had  now  fallen  to  his  lot,  as 
it  is  difficult  for  any  man,  even  for  a  priest,  to  live  without  a 
hobby,  for  the  last  eighteen  months  the  Abbe  Birotteau  had  sub- 
stituted for  his  two  gratified  passions  a  craving  for  a  canonry. 
The  title  of  canon  had  become  to  him  what  that  of  a  peer 
must  be  to  a  plebeian  minister.  And  the  probability  of  a 
nomination,  the  hopes  he  had  just  been  encouraged  in  at 
Madame  de  Listomere's,  had  so  effectually  turned  his  brain 
that  it  was  only  on  reaching  home  that  he  discovered  that  he 
had  left  his  umbrella  at  her  house.  Perhaps,  indeed,  but  for  the 
rain  that  fell  in  torrents,  he  would  not  have  remembered  it  then, 
so  completely  was  he  absorbed  in  repeating  to  himself  all  that 
had  been  said  on  the  subject  of  his  preferment  by  the  mem- 


168  THE   CELIBATES. 

bers  of  the  party  at  Madame  de  Listomere's — an  old  lady  with 
whom  he  spent  every  Wednesday  evening. 

The  abbe  rang  sharply  as  a  hint  to  the  maid  not  to  keep 
him  waiting.  Then  he  shrank  into  the  corner  by  the  door  so 
as  to  be  splashed  as  little  as  possible ;  but  the  water  from  the 
roof  ran  off  precisely  on  the  toes  of  his  shoes,  and  the  gusts 
of  wind  blew  on  to  him  squalls  of  rain  not  unlike  a  repeated 
shower-bath.  After  calculating  the  time  necessary  for  coming 
from  the  kitchen  to  pull  the  latch-string  under  the  door,  he 
rang  again,  a  very  significant  peal.  "They  cannot  have 
gone  out,"  thought  he,  hearing  not  a  sound  within.  And  for 
the  third  time  he  rang,  again  and  again,  a  peal  that  sounded 
so  sharply  through  the  house,  and  was  so  loudly  repeated  by 
every  echo  in  the  cathedral,  that  it  was  impossible  not  to  be 
roused  by  this  assertive  jangle.  And  a  few  moments  after  it 
was  not  without  satisfaction,  mingled  with  annoyance,  that  he 
heard  the  maid's  wooden  shoes  clattering  over  the  pebbly 
stone  floor.  Still,  the  gouty  priest's  troubles  were  not  over  so 
soon  as  he  thought.  Instead  of  pulling  the  latch,  Marianne 
was  obliged  to  unlock  the  door  with  the  huge  key,  and  draw 
back  the  bolts. 

"How  can  you  leave  me  to  ring  three  times  in  such 
weather?  "  said  he  to  Marianne. 

"  Why,  sir,  as  you  see,  the  house  was  locked  up.  Every- 
body has  been  in  bed  a  long  time  ;  it  has  struck  a  quarter  to 
ten.  Mademoiselle  must  have  thought  you  had  not  gone 
out." 

"But  you  yourself  saw  me  go  out.  Besides,  mademoiselle 
knows  very  well  that  I  go  to  Madame  de  Listomere's  every 
Wednesday." 

"Well,  sir,  I  only  did  as  mademoiselle  told  me,"  replied 
Marianne,  locking  the  door  again. 

These  words  were  a  blow  to  the  abbe,  which  he  felt  all  the 
more  keenly  for  the  intense  bliss  of  his  day-dream.  He  said 
nothing,  but  followed  Marianne  to  the  kitchen,  to  fetch  his 


THE  ABBA  BIROTTEAU.  169 

bedroom  candle,  whicli  he  supposed  would  have  been  brought 
down  there.  But  instead  of  going  to  the  kitchen,  Marianne 
lighted  the  abbe  up  to  his  rooms,  wliere  he  found  the  candle- 
stick on  a  table  outside  the  door  of  the  red  drawing-room,  in 
a  sort  of  anteroom,  formed  of  the  stair-landing,  which  the 
canon  had  shut  in  for  the  purpose  by  a  large  glass  partition. 
Dumb  with  surprise,  he  hurried  into  his  bedroom,  found  no 
fire  on  the  hearth,  and  called  Marianne,  who  had  not  yet  had 
time  to  go  downstairs. 

"  You  have  not  lighted  my  fire  ?  "  said  he. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir;  it  must  have  gone  out  again." 

Birotteau  looked  again  at  the  hearth,  and  saw  plainly  that 
the  ashes  had  been  piled  there  since  the  morning. 

"I  want  to  dry  my  feet,"  he  went  on;  "make  up  the 
fire." 

Marianne  obeyed  with  the  haste  of  a  woman  who  wants  to 
go  to  sleep,  while  the  abbe  himself  hunted  for  his  slippers ; 
failing  to  see  them  in  the  middle  of  his  bed-rug,  as  usual,  he 
made  certain  observations  as  to  the  way  Marianne  was  dressed, 
which  proved  to  a  demonstration  that  she  had  not  just  gotten 
out  of  bed,  as  she  had  asserted.  And  he  then  remembered 
that  for  about  a  fortnight  past  he  had  been  weaned  from  all 
the  little  attentions  that  had  made  life  so  endurable  for  the 
last  eighteen  months.  Now,  as  it  is  in  the  nature  of  narrow 
minds  to  argue  from  minute  things,  he  at  once  gave  himself 
up  to  deep  reflections  on  these  four  incidents,  imperceptible 
to  anybody  else,  but  to  him  nothing  less  than  four  catastrophes. 
The  oversight  as  to  his  slippers,  Marianne's  falsehood  with 
regard  to  the  fire,  the  unaccustomed  removal  of  his  candle- 
stick to  the  table  in  the  anteroom,  and  the  long  waiting  so 
ingeniously  inflicted  on  him,  on  the  threshold  in  the  rain,  were 
ominous  of  a  complete  wreck  of  his  happiness. 

When  the  fire  was  blazing  on  the  dogs,  when  his  night- 
lamp  was  lighted,  and  Marianne  had  left  him  without  inquir- 
ing as  usual,  "Does  monsieur  need  anything  further?"  the 


170  THE   CELIBATES. 

abbe  sank  gently  into  his  departed  friend's  roomy  and  hand- 
some easy-chair ;  still  his  action  as  he  dropped  into  it  was 
somewhat  melancholy.  The  worthy  man  was  oppressed  by 
the  presentiment  of  terrible  disaster.  His  eyes  fell  in  succes- 
sion on  the  handsome  timepiece,  the  chest  of  drawers,  the 
chairs,  curtains,  and  rugs,  the  four-post  bed,  the  holy-water 
shell  and  the  crucifix,  on  a  Virgin  by  Le  Valentin,  on  a  Christ 
by  Lebrun — in  short,  on  all  the  details  of  the  room  ;  the  ex- 
pression of  his  face  betrayed  the  pangs  of  the  tenderest  fare- 
well that  a  lover  ever  looked  at  his  first  mistress,  or  an  old 
man  at  his  latest  plantation.  The  abbe  had  just  detected — a 
little  late,  it  is  true — the  symptoms  of  a  covert  persecution  to 
which  he  had  for  about  three  months  been  subjected  by  Made- 
moiselle Gamard,  whose  ill-will  would  no  doubt  have  been 
suspected  sooner  by  a  man  of  keener  intelligence. 

Have  not  all  old  maids  a  certain  talent  for  emphasizing  the 
acts  and  words  suggested  to  them  by  hatred  ?  They  scratch 
as  cats  do.  And  not  only  do  they  hurt,  but  they  take  pleas- 
ure in  hurting,  and  in  making  their  victim  see  that  they  can 
hurt.  While  a  man  of  the  world  would  not  have  allowed  him- 
self to  be  clawed  a  second  time,  the  worthy  Birotteau  had 
taken  several  scratches  in  the  face  before  he  had  conceived  of 
malignant  purpose. 

Immediately,  with  the  inquisitorial  shrewdness  acquired  by 
priests,  accustomed  as  they  are  to  direct  consciences  and  to 
investigate  trifles  from  the  shades  of  the  confessional,  the  Abbe 
Birotteau  set  to  work  to  formulate  the  following  proposition — 
as  though  it  were  the  basis  of  a  religious  controversy.  Grant- 
ing that  Mademoiselle  Gamard  may  have  forgotten  Madame 
de  Listomere's  evening — that  Marianne  had  neglected  to  light 
my  fire — that  they  thought  I  was  at  home ;  as  it  is  certain  that 
I,  myself,  must  have  taken  my  candlestick  downstairs  this 
morning  !  !  ! — it  is  impossible  that  Mademoiselle  Gamard, 
seeing  it  in  her  sitting-room,  could  have  supposed  I  had  gone 
to  bed.     Ergo,  Mademoiselle  Gamard  left  me  at  the  door  in 


THE  ABBE  BIRO  TTEAU.  171 

the  rain  on  purpose  ;  and  by  having  the  candlestick  carried 
up  to  my  rooms  she  meant  me  to  know  it.  "What  does  it 
mean?"  he  said  aloud,  carried  away  by  the  gravity  of  the 
case,  as  he  rose  to  take  off  his  wet  clothes  and  put  on  his 
dressing-gown  and  his  nightcap.  Then  he  went  from  the  bed 
to  the  fire,  gesticulating  and  jerking  out  such  comments  as 
these,  in  various  tones  of  voice,  all  ended  in  a  falsetto  pitch 
as  though  to  represent  points  of  interrogation  : 

"  What  the  deuce  have  I  done  ?  Why  does  she  owe  me  a 
grudge  ?  Marianne  cannot  have  forgotten  my  fire ;  made- 
moiselle must  have  told  her  not  to  light  it  !  I  should  be 
childish  not  to  see  from  the  tone  and  manner  she  assumes 
towards  me  that  I  have  been  so  unfortunate  as  to  displease 
her.  Nothing  of  the  kind  ever  happened  to  Chapeloud  !  It 
will  be  impossible  for  me  to  live  in  the  midst  of  the  annoy- 
ances that At  my  age  too  !  " 

He  went  to  bed,  hoping  to  clear  up  on  the  morrow  the 
cause  of  the  hatred  which  was  destroying  for  ever  the  happi- 
ness he  had  enjoyed  for  two  years  after  wishing  for  it  so  long. 
Alas  !  the  secret  motives  of  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  feeling 
against  him  were  destined  to  remain  for  ever  unknown  to  him ; 
not  because  they  were  difficult  to  guess,  but  because  the  poor 
man  had  not  the  simple  candor  which  enables  great  minds 
and  thorough  scoundrels  to  recognize  and  judge  themselves. 
Only  a  man  of  genius  or  a  master  of  intrigue  ever  says  to  him- 
self, "  I  was  to  blame."  Interest  and  talent  are  the  only  con- 
scientious and  lucid  counselors. 

Now,  the  Abbe  Birotteau,  whose  kindliness  went  to  the 
pitch  of  silliness,  whose  knowledge  was  a  sort  of  veneer  laid 
on  by  patient  work,  who  had  no  experience  whatever  of  the 
world  and  its  ways,  and  who  lived  between  the  altar  and  the 
confessional,  chiefly  engaged  in  deciding  trivial  cases  of  con- 
science in  his  capacity  of  confessor  to  the  schools  of  the 
town,  and  to  some  noble  souls  who  appreciated  him — the 
.\.bb6  Birotteau  was,  in  short,  to  be  regarded  as  a  big  baby  to 


172  THE    CELIBATES. 

whom  the  greater  part  of  social  customs  were  absolutely  un- 
known. At  the  same  time,  the  selfishness  natural  to  all  human 
beings,  reinforced  by  the  egoism  peculiar  to  a  priest,  and  by 
that  of  the  narrow  life  of  a  provincial  town,  had  insensibly 
grown  strong  in  him  without  his  suspecting  it.  If  any  one 
had  taken  enough  interest  in  searching  the  good  man's  soul  to 
show  him  that,  in  the  infinitely  small  details  of  his  existence 
and  the  trivial  duties  of  his  private  life,  he  failed  essentially 
in  the  self-sacrifice  he  professed,  he  would  have  punished  and 
mortified  himself  in  all  sincerity. 

But  those  whom  we  offend,  even  unwittingly,  reck  not  of 
our  innocence ;  they  desire  and  achieve  revenge.  Thus  Bi- 
rotteau,  weak  as  he  was,  was  doomed  to  suffer  under  the  hand 
of  that  great  distributive  justice  which  always  trusts  the  world 
to  carry  out  its  sentences,  known  to  many  simpletons  as  the 
misfortunes  of  life. 

There  was  this  difference  between  Canon  Chapeloud  and 
the  abbe  :  one  was  a  witty  and  ingenious  egoist,  the  other  an 
honest  and  clumsy  one.  When  Monsieur  Chapeloud  had 
come  to  board  with  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  he  could  perfectly 
well  gauge  his  landlady's  character.  The  confessional  had 
enlightened  him  as  to  the  bitterness  infused  into  an  old 
maid's  heart  by  the  misfortune  of  finding  herself  outside 
society  ;  his  behavior  to  Mademoiselle  Gamard  was  shrewdly 
calculated.  The  lady  being  no  more  than  eight-and-thirty, 
still  had  those  little  pretensions  which,  in  such  discreet 
persons,  turn  in  later  years  into  a  high  opinion  of  them- 
selves. 

The  canon  understood  that,  to  live  comfortably  with  Made- 
moiselle Gamard,  he  must  always  show  her  the  same  respect 
and  attention,  and  be  more  infallible  than  the  pope.  To 
obtain  this  end  he  established  no  points  of  contact  between 
himself  and  her  beyond  what  the  strictest  politeness  required, 
and  those  necessarily  subsisting  between  two  persons  living 
under  the  same  roof.     Thus,  though  he  and  the  Abb6  Trou- 


THE  ABB&  BIROTTEAU.  173 

bert  regularly  took  their  three  meals  a  day,  he  had  never 
appeared  at  breakfast,  but  had  accustomed  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  to  send  up  to  him,  in  his  bed,  a  cup  of  coffee  with 
milk.  Then  he  had  avoided  the  boredom  of  supper  by 
always  taking  tea  at  some  house  where  he  spent  the  evening. 
Thus  he  rarely  saw  his  landlady  at  any  time  of  the  day  ex- 
cepting at  dinner,  but  he  always  came  into  the  room  a  few 
minutes  before  the  hour.  During  this  polite  little  visit, 
every  day  of  the  twelve  years  he  had  spent  under  her  roof  he 
had  asked  her  the  same  questions  and  received  the  same 
answers.  How  Mademoiselle  Gamard  had  slept  during  the 
night,  the  breakfast,  little  domestic  events,  the  appearance 
of  her  face,  the  health  of  her  person,  the  weather,  the  length 
of  the  church  services,  the  incidents  of  the  morning's  mass, 
the  health  of  this  or  that  priest,  constituted  the  themes  of 
this  daily  dialogue. 

During  dinner  he  always  indulged  her  with  indirect  flattery, 
going  on  from  the  quality  of  the  fish,  the  excellence  of  some 
seasoning,  or  the  merits  of  a  sauce,  to  those  of  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  and  her  virtues  as  a  housekeeper.  He  was  sure  of 
soothing  all  the  old  maid's  conceits  when  he  praised  the  art 
with  which  her  preserves  were  made,  her  gherkins  pickled, 
and  the  excellence  of  her  jam,  her  pies,  and  other  gastronom- 
ical  inventions.  Finally,  the  wily  canon  never  quitted  her 
yellow  drawing-room  without  remarking  that  there  was  not 
another  house  in  Tours  where  the  coffee  was  so  good  as  that 
he  had  just  been  drinking. 

Thanks  to  this  perfect  comprehension  of  Mademoiselle 
Gamard's  character,  and  this  science  of  life  as  practiced  by 
the  canon  for  those  twelve  years,  no  grounds  had  ever  occurred 
for  a  discussion  on  any  matter  of  domestic  discipline.  The 
Abbe  Chapeloud  had  from  the  first  discerned  every  angle, 
every  rasping  edge,  every  asperity  in  this  old  maid,  and  had 
so  regulated  the  effect  of  the  tangents  where  they  inevitably 
met  as  to  secure  from  her  every  concession  needed  for  peace 


374  THE   CELIBATES. 

and  happiness  in  life.  And  Mademoiselle  Gamard  would 
always  say  that  Canon  Chapeloud  was  a  most  amiable  man, 
very  easy  to  live  with,  and  full  of  wit. 

As  to  the  Abbe  Troubert,  the  bigot  never  by  any  chance 
spoke  of  him.  Troubert  had  so  completely  fallen  into  the 
routine  of  her  life,  like  a  satellite  in  the  orbit  of  its  planet, 
that  he  had  become  to  her  a  sort  of  mongrel  creature  between 
those  of  the  human  and  those  of  the  canine  species ;  he  filled 
a  place  in  her  mind  exactly  below  that  occupied  by  her  friends 
and  that  filled  by  a  fat  asthmatic  pug-dog  to  which  she  was 
tenderly  devoted  ;  she  managed  him  completely,  and  their 
interests  became  so  inextricably  knit  that  many  persons  of 
Mademoiselle  Gamard's  circle  supposed  that  the  Abbe  Troubert 
had  an  eye  to  the  old  maid's  fortune,  and  was  attaching  her 
to  him  by  his  constant  patience,  guiding  her  all  the  more 
effectually  because  he  affected  to  obey  her,  never  allowing  her 
to  see  in  him  the  faintest  wish  to  rule  her. 

When  the  canon  died,  the  old  maid,  anxious  to  have 
a  boarder  of  quiet  habits,  naturally  thought  of  this  priest. 
The  canon's  will  had  not  yet  been  opened  when  Made- 
moiselle Gamard  was  already  meditating  giving  the  de- 
parted canon's  upper  rooms  to  her  worthy  Abbe  Troubert, 
whom  she  thought  but  poorly  lodged  on  the  ground  floor. 
But  when  the  Abb6  Birotteau  came  to  discuss  with  her  the 
written  conditions  of  her  terms,  she  found  that  he  was  so 
much  in  love  with  the  lodgings  for  which  he  had  long 
cherished  a  passion  he  might  now  avow,  that  she  did  not 
venture  to  propose  an  exchange,  and  affection  gave  way 
before  the  pressure  of  interest.  To  console  her  favorite 
abbe,  mademoiselle  substituted  a  parquet  flooring  in  a  neat 
pattern  for  the  white  Chateau-Renaud  tiles  in  the  ground- 
floor  rooms,  and  rebuilt  a  chimney  that  smoked. 

The  Abbe  Birotteau  had  seen  his  friend  Chapeloud  con- 
stantly for  twelve  years  without  it  ever  having  occurred  to 
him  to  wonder  why  he  was  so  excessively  circumspect  in  his 


THE  ABB^  BIROTTEAU.  175 

intercourse  with  the  old  maid.  When  he  came  to  live  under 
this  saintly  damsel's  roof  he  felt  like  a  lover  on  the  verge  of 
happiness.  Even  if  he  had  not  been  blinded  by  natural 
stupidity,  his  eyes  were  too  much  dazzled  by  contentment  for 
him  to  be  capable  of  gauging  Mademoiselle  Gamard  or  of 
considering  the  due  measure  of  his  daily  relations  with  her. 
Mademoiselle  Gamard,  seen  from  afar,  through  the  prism  of 
the  material  enjoyment  the  abbe  dreamed  of  finding  with  her, 
appeared  to  him  an  admirable  creature,  a  perfect  Christian, 
an  essentially  charitable  soul,  the  woman  of  the  gospel,  the 
wise  virgin  graced  with  the  humble  and  modest  virtues  which 
shed  celestial  fragrance  over  life.  And  thus,  with  all  the 
enthusiasm  of  a  man  who  has  reached  a  long-wished-for  goal, 
with  the  simplicity  of  a  child  and  the  silly  heedlessness  of  an 
old  man  devoid  of  worldly  experience,  he  came  into  Made- 
moiselle Gamard's  life  as  a  fly  is  caught  in  a  spider's  web. 

So  the  first  day  he  was  to  dine  and  sleep  in  the  old  maid's 
house  he  lingered  in  her  drawing-room,  as  much  in  the  wish 
to  make  acquaintance  with  her  as  in  the  inexplicable  embar- 
rassment that  often  troubles  shy  people  and  makes  them  fear 
lest  they  should  be  rude  if  they  break  off  a  conversation  to 
leave  the  room.  So  there  he  remained  all  the  evening. 
Another  old  maid,  a  friend  of  Birotteau's,  Mademoiselle  Sal- 
omon de  Villenoix,  came  in  the  evening.  Then  Mademoi- 
selle Gamard  had  the  joy  of  arranging  a  game  of  boston. 
The  abbe,  as  he  went  to  bed,  thought  he  had  had  a  very 
pleasant  evening. 

As  yet  he  knew  Mademoiselle  Gamard  and  the  Abbe 
Troubert  but  very  little,  and  saw  only  the  surface.  Few 
persons  show  their  faults  unveiled  at  first.  Generally  every- 
body tries  to  assume  an  attractive  exterior.  So  Birotteau 
conceived  the  delightful  purpose  of  devoting  his  evenings  to 
Mademoiselle  Gamard  instead  of  spending  them  elsewhere. 
The  lady  had  some  few  years  since  conceived  a  desire  which 
revived  more  strongly  every  day.     This  desire,  common  to 


176  THE   CELIBATES. 

old  men,  and  even  to  pretty  women,  had  become  in  her  a 
passion  like  that  of  Birotteau  for  his  friend  Chapeloud's 
rooms,  and  was  rooted  in  the  old  maid's  heart  by  the  feelings 
of  pride,  egoism,  envy,  and  vanity  which  are  innate  in  the 
worldly-minded.  This  story  repeats  itself  in  every  age.  You 
have  but  slightly  to  enlarge  the  circle  at  the  bottom  of  which 
these  personages  are  about  to  move  to  find  the  coefficient 
motive  of  events  which  happen  in  the  highest  ranks  of  society. 

Mademoiselle  Gamard  spent  her  evenings  at  six  or  eight 
different  houses  by  turns.  Whether  it  was  that  she  was  an- 
noyed at  having  to  seek  company,  and  thought  that  at  her 
age  she  had  a  right  to  expect  some  return  ;  whether  her  con- 
ceit was  affronted  by  her  having  no  circle  of  her  own ;  or 
whether  it  was  that  her  vanity  craved  the  compliments  and 
amusements  she  saw  her  friends  enjoying — all  her  ambition 
M'as  to  make  her  salon  a  centre  of  union  towards  which  a 
certain  number  of  persons  would  tend  every  evening  with 
pleasure.  When  Birotteau  and  his  friend  Mademoiselle 
Salomon  had  spent  a  few  evenings  in  her  room  with  the 
faithful  and  patient  Abbe  Troubert,  one  night,  as  she  came 
out  of  Saint-Gatien,  Mademoiselle  Gamard  said  to  the  kind 
friends  of  whom  she  had  hitherto  considered  herself  the  slave, 
that  those  who  cared  to  see  her  might  very  well  come  once 
a  week  to  her  house,  where  a  sufficient  party  met  already  to 
make  up  a  game  of  boston ;  that  she  could  not  leave  her  new 
boarder,  the  Abbe  Birotteau,  alone ;  that  Mademoiselle  Salo- 
mon had  not  yet  missed  a  single  evening  of  the  week;  that 
she  belonged  to  her  boarders ;  and  that,  etc.,  etc. 

Her  speech  was  all  the  more  humbly  haughty  and  volubly 
sweet  because  Mademoiselle  Salomon  de  Villenoix  belonged 
to  the  most  aristocratic  circle  in  Tours.  Though  Mademoi- 
selle Salomon  came  solely  for  the  abbe's  sake,  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  triumphed  in  having  her  in  her  drawing-room. 
Thanks  to  the  Abbd  Birotteau,  she  found  herself  on  the  eve 
of  succeeding  in  her  great  scheme  of  forming  a  circle  which 


THE  ABB£  BIROTTEAU.  177 

might  become  as  numerous  and  as  agreeable  as  were  those  of 
Madame  de  Listomere,  of  Mademoiselle  Merlin  de  la  Blot- 
tiere,  and  other  devout  persons  in  a  position  to  receive  the 
pious  society  of  Tours.  But,  alas  !  the  Abbe  Birotteau  brought 
Mademoiselle  Gamard's  hopes  to  an  overthrow. 

Now,  if  any  persons,  who  have  attained  in  life  the  enjoy- 
ment of  a  long-wished-for  happiness,  have  entered  into  the 
gladness  the  abbe  must  have  felt  in  lying  down  to  rest  in 
Chapeloud's  bed,  they  must  also  form  a  slight  notion  of 
Mademoiselle  Gamard's  chagrin  at  the  ruin  of  her  cherished 
scheme.  After  accepting  his  good  fortune  patiently  enough 
for  six  months,  Birotteau  deserted  his  home,  carrying  with 
him  Mademoiselle  Salomon. 

In  spite  of  unheard-of  efforts,  the  ambitious  Gamard  had 
secured  no  more  than  five  or  six  recruits,  whose  fidelity  was 
very  problematical,  and  at  least  four  unfailing  visitors  were 
needed  for  regular  boston.  She  was  consequently  obliged  to 
make  honorable  amends  and  return  to  her  old  friends,  for  old 
maids  are  too  poor  company  to  themselves  not  to  crave  the 
doubtful  pleasures  of  society. 

The  causes  of  this  defection  are  easily  imagined.  Though 
the  abbe  was  one  of  those  to  whom  paradise  shall  one  day 
be  opened  in  virtue  of  the  words,  "  Blessed  are  the  poor  in 
spirit,"  he,  like  many  fools,  could  not  endure  the  weariness 
inflicted  on  him  by  other  fools.  Unintelligent  persons  are 
like  weeds  that  thrive  in  good  ground;  they  love  to  be  amused 
in  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  they  weary  themselves. 
Being  the  incarnation  of  the  dullness  they  suffer  from,  the 
craving  they  perpetually  feel  to  be  divorced  from  themselves 
produces  the  mania  for  excitement,  the  need  to  be  where  they 
are  not,  which  characterizes  them  as  it  does  other  creatures 
who  lack  feeling,  or  whose  lot  is  a  failure,  or  who  suffer  by 
their  own  fault.  Without  understanding  too  clearly  the 
vacuity  and  nullity  of  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  or  discerning 
the  smallness  of  her  mind,  poor  Birotteau  discovered,  too 
12 


178  THE   CELIBATES. 

late  for  happiness,  the  faults  she  had  in  common  with  all  old 
maids,  as  well  as  those  personal  to  herself. 

What  is  evil,  in  other  people,  contrasts  so  strongly  with 
what  is  good,  that  it  generally  strikes  the  eye  before  inflicting 
a  wound.  This  moral  phenomenon  might  at  need  justify  the 
tendency  that  leads  us  all  more  or  less  to  evil  speaking.  So- 
cially speaking,  it  is  so  natural  to  satirize  the  faults  of  others 
that  we  ought  to  forgive  the  severe  gossip  to  which  our  own 
absurdities  give  rise,  and  wonder  at  nothing  but  calumny. 

Bat  the  good  abbe's  eyes  were  never  at  the  precise  fccus 
which  enables  the  worldly  wise  to  see  and  at  once  evade  their 
neighbors'  sharp  tongues ;  to  discover  his  landlady's  fault,  he 
was  obliged  to  endure  the  warning  given  by  nature  to  all  its 
creatures,  that  of  suffering. 

Old  maids,  having  never  bent  their  temper  or  their  lives  to 
other  lives  and  other  tempers,  as  woman's  destiny  requires, 
have  for  the  most  part  a  mania  for  making  everything  about 
them  bend  to  them.  In  Mademoiselle  Gamard  this  feeling 
had  degenerated  into  despotism,  but  this  despotism  could 
only  be  exerted  in  small  things.  For  instance — out  of  a 
thousand  cases — the  basket  of  counters  and  fish  placed  on  the 
boston  table  for  the  Abbe  Birotteau  must  be  left  on  the  spot 
where  she  had  put  it,  and  the  abbe  irritated  her  extremely  by 
moving  it,  as  he  did  almost  every  evening.  What  was  the 
cause  of  this  touchiness  foolishly  provoked  by  mere  trifles, 
and  what  was  its  object  ?  No  one  could  say ;  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  herself  did  not  know. 

Though  very  lamblike  by  nature,  the  new  boarder  did  not 
like  to  feel  the  crook  too  often,  any  more  than  a  sheep,  espe- 
cially a  crook  set  with  nails.  Without  understanding  Canon 
Troubert's  amazing  patience,  Birotteau  was  anxious  to  escape 
the  bliss  which  Mademoiselle  Gamard  was  bent  on  seasoning 
to  her  own  taste,  for  she  thought  she  could  compound  happi- 
ness as  she  could  preserves ;  but  the  luckless  priest  set  to  work 
very  clumsily,  as  a  result  of  his  perfectly  artless  nature.     So 


THE  ABBi  BIROTTEAU.  179 

the  separation  was  not  effected  without  some  clawing  and 
pricking,  to  which  the  Abbe  Birotteau  tried  to  seem  insensilile. 

By  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  his  life  under  Mademoiselle 
Gamard's  roof  the  abbe  had  fallen  into  his  old  habits,  spend- 
ing two  evenings  a  week  at  Madame  de  Listomere's,  three 
with  Mademoiselle  Salomon,  and  the  other  two  with  Made- 
moiselle Merlin  de  la  Blottiere.  These  ladies  moved  in  the 
aristocratic  sphere  of  Tours  society,  to  which  Mademoiselle 
Garaard  was  not  admitted.  So  the  landlady  was  excessively 
indignant  at  the  abbe's  defection,  which  made  her  aware  of 
her  small  importance :  any  kind  of  selection  implying  some 
contempt  for  the  rejected  object. 

"  Monsieur  Birotteau  did  not  find  us  good  enough  com- 
pany," the  Abbe  Troubert  would  say  to  Mademoiselle 
Gamard's  friends  when  she  was  obliged  to  give  up  her  "even- 
ings." "He  is  a  wit,  a  gourmet!  He  must  have  fashion, 
luxury,  brilliant  conversation,  the  tittle-tattle  of  the  town." 

And  such  words  always  prompted  Mademoiselle  Gamard  to 
praise  the  canon's  excellent  temper  at  the  expense  of  Birot- 
teau's. 

"He  is  not  so  clever  when  all  is  said,"  she  remarked. 
"But  for  Canon  Chapeloud  he  would  never  have  been  re- 
ceived by  Madame  de  Listoraere.  Oh,  I  lost  a  great  deal 
when  the  Abbe  Chapeloud  died.  What  an  amiable  man  ! 
and  so  easy  to  live  with  !  Indeed,  in  twelve  years  we  never 
had  the  smallest  difficulty  or  disagreement." 

Mademoiselle  Gamard  painted  so  unflattering  a  portrait  of 
Monsieur  Birotteau  that  her  innocent  boarder  was  regarded 
by  this  citizen  circle,  secretly  hostile  to  the  aristocratic  class, 
as  an  essentially  fractious  man,  very  difficult  to  get  on  with. 
Then  for  a  few  weeks  the  old  maid  had  the  satisfaction  of 
hearing  herself  pitied  by  her  female  friends,  who,  without  be- 
lieving a  word  of  what  they  said,  repeated  again  and  again, 
"  How  can  you,  who  are  so  gentle  and  so  kind,  have  inspired 


180  THE  CELIBATES. 

him  with  such  dislike? "  or,  "  Be  comforted,  dear  Made- 
moiselle Gamard,  every  one  knows  you  too  well "  and  so 

forth. 

Delighted,  nevertheless,  to  escape  spending  an  evening 
each  week  in  the  Close — the  most  deserted  and  gloomy  spot 
in  all  Tours,  and  the  most  remote  from  the  centre  of  life — 
they  all  blessed  the  abbe. 

Love  or  hatred  must  constantly  increase  between  two  per- 
sons who  are  always  together  j  every  moment  fresh  reasons 
are  found  for  loving  or  hating  better.  Thus  to  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  the  Abbe  Birotteau  became  unendurable.  Eighteen 
months  after  taking  him  as  a  boarder,  just  when  the  good 
man  believed  he  had  found  the  peace  of  contentment  in  the 
silence  of  aversion,  and  prided  himself  on  having  come  so 
comfortably  to  terms  with  the  old  woman,  to  use  his  expres- 
sion, he  was  to  her  the  object  of  covert  persecution  and 
calmly  planned  animosity. 

The  four  capital  facts  of  the  closed  door,  the  forgotten 
slippers,  the  lack  of  fire,  the  candlestick  taken  to  his  rooms, 
alone  could  betray  the  terrible  enmity  of  which  the  last 
effects  were  not  to  fall  on  him  till  the  moment  when  they 
would  be  irremediable.  As  he  went  to  sleep,  the  good  abb6 
racked  his  brain,  but  vainly — and,  indeed,  he  must  soon  have 
come  to  the  bottom  of  it — to  account  for  Mademoiselle 
Gamard's  singularly  uncivil  behavior.  In  point  of  fact,  as 
he  had  originally  acted  very  logically,  obeying  the  natural 
law  of  his  egoism,  he  could  not  possibly  form  a  guess  as  to 
how  he  had  offended  his  landlady.  While  great  things  are 
simple  to  understand  and  easy  to  express,  tlie  mean  things  of 
life  need  much  detail.  The  incidents  which  constitute  the 
prologue,  as  it  were,  to  this  parochial  drama,  in  which  the 
passions  will  be  seen  not  less  violent  than  if  they  had  been 
excited  by  important  interests,  necessitated  this  long  intro- 
duction, and  any  exact  historian  would  have  found  it  difficult 
to  abridge  the  trivial  tale. 


THE  ABB£   BIROTTEAU.  181 

When  he  awoke  next  morning,  the  abbe's  thoughts  were  so 
much  set  on  the  canonry  that  he  forgot  the  four  circum.- 
stances,  which,  the  evening  before,  had  appeared  to  him  to  be 
sinister  prognostics  of  a  future  full  of  disaster.  Birotteau  was 
not  the  man  to  get  up  without  a  fire ;  he  rang  to  announce  to 
Marianne  that  he  was  awake,  and  wanted  her ;  then,  as  he  was 
wont,  he  lay  lost  in  a  somnolent,  half-dreamy  state,  during 
which,  as  a  rule,  the  woman  made  the  fire,  and  dragged  him 
gently  from  his  last  doze  by  a  hum  of  inquiry  and  quiet 
bustle — a  sort  of  music  that  he  liked. 

Half  an  hour  went  by,  and  Marianne  had  not  appeared. 
The  abbe,  already  half  a  canon,  was  about  to  ring  again, 
when  he  stayed  his  hand  on  hearing  a  man's  step  on  the 
stairs.  In  fact,  the  Abbe  Troubert,  after  discreetly  tapping 
at  the  door,  at  Birotteau's  bidding  came  in.  This  call  did 
not  surprise  him  ;  the  priests  were  in  the  habit  of  paying  each 
other  a  visit  once  a  month.  The  canon  was  at  once  amazed 
that  Marianne  should  not  yet  have  lighted  his  quasi-colleague's 
fire.  He  opened  a  window,  called  Marianne  in  a  rough  tone, 
and  bid  her  come  up  at  once  ;  then,  turning  to  his  brother 
priest,  he  said,  "If  mademoiselle  should  hear  that  you  have 
no  fire,  she  would  give  Marianne  a  good  scolding." 

After  this  speech  he  inquired  for  Birotteau's  health,  and 
asked  him,  in  an  insinuating  voice,  whether  he  had  any 
recent  news  that  could  encourage  his  hope  of  being  made  a 
canon.  The  abbe  explained  to  him  what  was  being  done, 
and  guilelessly  told  him  who  the  personages  were  that  Mad- 
ame de  Listomere  was  canvassing,  not  knowing  that  Troubert 
had  never  forgiven  that  lady  for  not  inviting  him  to  her 
house — him — Canon  Troubert,  twice  designated  to  be  made 
vicar-general  of  the  diocese. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  meet  with  two  figures  offering  so 
many  points  of  contrast  as  those  of  these  two  priests.  Trou- 
bert, tall  and  lean,  had  a  bilious-yellow  hue,  while  Birotteau 
was  what  is  familiarly  called  crummy.     His  face,  round  and 


182  THE  CELIBATES. 

florid,  spoke  of  good-nature  devoid  of  ideas;  while  Trou- 
bert's,  long  and  furrowed  by  deep  wrinkles,  wore  at  times  an 
expression  of  irony  and  scorn ;  still,  attentive  examination 
was  needed  to  discover  these  feelings.  The  canon  was  habit- 
ually and  absolutely  placid,  his  eyelids  almost  always  lowered 
over  a  pair  of  orange-hazel  eyes,  whose  glance  was  at  will 
very  clear  and  piercing.  Red  hair  completed  this  coun- 
tenance, which  was  constantly  clouded  under  the  shroud  cast 
over  his  features  by  serious  meditations.  Several  persons  had 
at  first  supposed  him  to  be  absorbed  in  high  and  rooted  am- 
bition ;  but  those  who  thought  they  knew  him  best  had  ended 
by  demolishing  this  opinion,  representing  him  as  stultified  by 
Mademoiselle  Gamard's  tyranny,  or  worn  by  long  fasting. 
He  rarely  spoke,  and  never  laughed.  When  he  happened  to 
be  pleasurably  moved,  a  faint  smile  appeared  and  lost  itself 
in  the  furrows  on  his  cheeks. 

Birotteau,  on  the  other  hand,  was  all  expansiveness,  all 
openness ;  he  liked  titbits,  and  could  be  amused  by  a  trifle 
with  the  artlessness  of  a  man  free  from  gall  and  malice.  The 
Abbe  Troubert  at  first  sight  inspired  an  involuntary  feeling  of 
dread,  while  the  vicar  made  every  one  who  looked  at  him 
smile  kindly.  When  the  tall  canon  stalked  solemnly  along 
the  cloisters  and  aisles  of  Saint-Gatien,  his  brow  bent,  his  eye 
stern,  he  commanded  respect ;  his  bowed  figure  harmonized 
with  the  yellow  vaulting  of  the  cathedral ;  there  was  some- 
thing monumental  in  the  folds  of  his  gown,  and  worthy  of 
the  sculptor's  art.  But  the  good  little  abb6  moved  without 
dignity,  trotted  and  pattered,  looking  as  if  he  rolled  along. 

And  yet  the  two  men  had  one  point  of  resemblance. 
While  Troubert's  ambitious  looks,  by  making  the  world  afraid 
of  him,  had  perhaps  contributed  to  condemn  him  to  the 
modest  dignity  of  a  mere  canon,  Birotteau's  character  and 
appearance  seemed  to  stamp  him  forever  as  no  more  than  a 
vicar  of  the  cathedral.  The  Abbe  Troubert  meanwhile,  at 
the  age  of  fifty,  by  the  moderation  of  his  conduct,  by  the 


THE  ABBA  BIROTTEAU.  183 

apparently  total  absence  of  any  ambition  in  his  aims,  and  by 
his  saintly  life,  had  dispelled  the  fears  his  superiors  had  con- 
ceived of  his  supposed  cleverness  and  his  alarming  exterior. 
Indeed,  for  a  year  past,  his  health  had  been  seriously  im- 
paired, so  that  his  early  promotion  to  the  dignity  of  vicar- 
general  by  the  archbishop  seemed  probable.  His  rivals  even 
hoped  for  his  appointment,  to  enable  them  the  more  effectually 
to  prepare  for  their  own,  during  the  short  span  of  life  that 
might  yet  be  granted  him  by  a  malady  that  had  become 
chronic.  Birotteau's  triple  chin,  far  from  suggesting  the 
same  hopes,  displayed  to  the  candidates  who  were  struggling 
for  the  canonry  all  the  symptoms  of  vigorous  health,  and  his 
gout  seemed  to  them  the  proverbial  assurance  of  a  long  life. 

The  Abbe  Chapeloud,  a  man  of  great  good  sense,  whose 
amiability  had  secured  him  the  friendship  of  persons  in  good 
society  and  of  the  various  heads  of  the  diocese,  had  always 
opposed  the  elevation  of  the  Abbe  Troubert,  secretly  and 
with  much  address ;  he  had  even  hindered  his  admission  to 
any  of  the  salons  where  the  best  set  in  Tours  were  wont  to 
meet,  though  during  his  lifetime  Troubert  always  treated 
him  with  great  respect,  and  on  all  occasions  showed  him  the 
utmost  deference.  This  persistent  submissiveness  had  not 
availed  to  change  the  deceased  canon's  opinion  ;  during  his 
last  walk  with  Birotteau,   he  had  said  to  him  once  more — 

"  Do  not  trust  that  dry  pole  Troubert !  He  is  Sixtus  V. 
reduced  to  the  scale  of  a  bishopric." 

This  was  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  friend  and  messmate, 
who,  the  very  day  after  that  on  which  she  had,  so  to  speak, 
declared  war  with  poor  Birotteau,  had  come  to  call  on  him 
with  every  mark  of  friendliness. 

"You  must  excuse  Marianne,"  said  Troubert,  as  she  came 
in.  "I  fancy  she  did  my  room  first.  My  place  is  very 
damp,  and  I  coughed  a  great  deal  during  the  night.  You  are 
very  healthily  situated  here,"  he  added,  looking  up  at  the 
mouldings. 


184  THE   CELIBATES. 

"  Oh,  I  am  lodged  like  a  canon  !  "  replied  Birotteau  with 
a  smile. 

"  And  I  like  a  curate,"  replied  Abbe  Troubert  the  humble 
priest. 

"  Yes,  but  before  very  long  you  will  be  lodged  in  the  arch- 
bishop's palace,"  said  the  good  abbe,  who  only  wanted  that 
everybody  should  be  happy. 

"Oh!  or  in  the  graveyard.  God's  will  be  done!"  and 
Troubert  looked  up  to  heaven  with  a  resigned  air.  "  I  came," 
he  went  on,  "  to  beg  you  to  lend  me  the  '  General  Clergy 
List.'     No  one  but  you  has  the  book  at  Tours." 

"Take  it  out  of  the  bookcase,"  replied  Birotteau,  re- 
minded by  the  canon's  last  words  of  all  the  joys  of  his 
life. 

The  tall  priest  went  into  the  library,  and  remained  there 
all  the  time  the  abbe  was  dressing.  Presently  the  breakfast- 
bell  rang,  and  Birotteau,  reflecting  that  but  for  Troubert's 
visit  here  he  would  have  had  no  fire  to  get  up  by,  said  to 
himself,  "  He  is  a  good  man  !  " 

The  two  priests  went  down  together,  each  armed  with  an 
enormous  folio,  which  they  laid  on  one  of  the  consoles  in  the 
dining-room. 

"What  in  the  world  is  that?"  asked  Mademoiselle  Ga- 
mard  in  sharp  tones,  addressing  Birotteau.  "You  are  not 
going  to  lumber  up  my  dining-room  with  old  books  I 
hope  !  " 

"They  are  some  books  I  wanted,"  said  the  Abbe  Troubert. 
"Monsieur  is  kind  enough  to  lend  them  to  me." 

"I  might  have  guessed  that,"  said  she  with  a  scornful 
smile.  "  Monsieur  Birotteau  does  not  often  study  such  big 
books." 

"  And  how  are  you,  mademoiselle  ?  "  asked  the  abb^  in  a 
piping  voice. 

"Why,  not  at  all  well,"  she  replied  curtly.  "You  were 
the  cause  of  my  being  roused  from  my  first  sleep,  and  I  felt 


THE  ABB&  BIROTTEAU.  185 

the  effects  all  night."     And  as  she  seated  herself,  Mademoi- 
selle Gamard  added,  "Gentlemen,  the  milk  will  get  cold." 

Astounded  at  being  so  sourly  received  by  his  hostess  when 
he  expected  her  to  apologize,  but  frightened,  as  timid  people 
are,  by  the  prospect  of  a  discussion,  especially  when  they 
themselves  are  the  subject  of  it,  the  poor  abbe  took  his  place 
in  silence.  Then,  recognizing  in  Mademoiselle  Gamard's 
face  the  obvious  symptoms  of  a  bad  temper,  he  sat  warring 
with  his  common  sense,  which  advised  him  not  to  submit  to 
her  want  of  manners,  while  his  nature  prompted  him  to  avoid 
a  quarrel.  Birotteau,  a  prey  to  this  internal  struggle,  began 
by  seriously  studying  the  broad-green  stripes  painted  on  the 
oilcloth  cover,  which,  from  immemorial  habit,  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  always  left  on  the  table  during  breakfast,  heedless  of 
the  frayed  edges  and  scars  innumerable  that  covered  this 
cloth.  The  two  boarders  were  seated  opposite  each 
other,  in  cane  armchairs  at  each  end  of  the  table,  a  royal 
square  ;  the  place  between  them  being  occupied  by  the  land- 
lady, who  towered  above  the  table  from  a  chair  mounted  on 
runners,  padded  with  cushions,  and  backing  on  the  dining- 
room  stove.  This  room  and  the  common  sitting-room  were 
on  the  ground  floor,  under  the  Abbe  Birotteau's  bedroom 
and  drawing-room.  When  the  abbe  had  received  from  Made- 
moiselle Gama-d  his  cup  of  sweetened  coffee,  he  felt  chilled 
by  the  utter  silence  in  which  he  was  doomed  to  perform  the 
usually  cheerful  function  of  breakfast.  He  dared  not  look 
either  at  Troubert's  expressionless  face  or  at  the  old  maid's 
threatening  countenance;  so,  to  do  something,  he  turned  to 
the  pug-dog,  overburdened  with  fat,  lying  near  the  stove  on  a 
cushion  whence  it  never  stirred,  finding  always  on  the  left  a 
little  plate  of  dainties,  and  on  the  right  a  saucer  of  clean 
water. 

**  Well,  my  pet,"  said  he,  "so  you  want  your  coffee  !  " 
This  personage,  one  of  the  most  important  members  of  the 
household,  but  not  a  troublesome  one,  since  he  never  barked 


196  THE   CELIBATES. 

now,  and  left  the  conversation  to  his  mistress,  looked  up  at 
Birotteau  with  little  eyes  buried  in  the  folds  of  fat  that 
wrinkled  his  face.     Then  he  cunningly  shut  them  again. 

To  give  the  measure  of  the  priest's  discomfiture,  it  must 
be  explained  that,  being  gifted  with  a  voice  and  volubility  as 
resonant  and  meaningless  as  the  sound  of  an  India-rubber  ball, 
he  asserted,  without  being  able  to  give  the  faculty  any  reason 
for  his  opinion,  that  speech  favored  digestion.  Mademoiselle 
Gamard,  who  shared  this  theory  of  hygiene,  had  never 
hitherto  failed  to  converse  during  meals,  notwithstanding 
their  misunderstanding  \  but  now  for  some  few  days  the  abbe 
had  racked  his  wits  in  vain  to  ask  her  insidious  questions 
which  might  loosen  her  tongue.  If  the  narrow  limits  to  which 
this  story  is  restricted  would  allow  of  a  report  in  full  of  one 
of  these  conversations  which  always  provoked  the  Abbe 
Troubert's  bitter  and  sardonic  smiles,  it  would  give  a  perfect 
picture  of  the  Boeotian  existence  of  provincials.  Some  clever 
men  might  perhaps  be  even  pleased  to  know  the  extraordinary 
amplitude  given  by  the  Abbe  Birotteau  and  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  to  their  personal  opinions  on  politics,  religion,  and 
literature.  There  would  certainly  be  some  very  funny  things 
to  tell :  such  as  their  reasons,  in  1820,  for  doubting  the  death 
of  Napoleon,  or  the  conjectures  which  led  them  to  believe  in 
the  survival  of  Louis  XVII.,  smuggled  away  in  a  hollow  log 
of  wood.  Who  would  not  have  laughed  to  hear  them  assert- 
ing, with  arguments  peculiarly  their  own,  that  the  King  of 
France  alone  spent  the  money  collected  in  taxes ;  that  the 
Chambers  met  to  destroy  the  clergy  ;  that  more  than  thirteen 
hundred  thousand  persons  had  perished  on  the  scaffold  during 
the  Revolution  ?  Then  they  discussed  the  press,  knowing 
nothing  of  how  many  newspapers  were  issued,  having  not  the 
smallest  idea  of  what  this  modern  power  is.  Finally,  Mon- 
sieur Birotteau  listened  respectfully  to  Mademoiselle  Gamard 
when  she  asserted  that  a  man  fed  on  an  egg  every  morning 
would  infallibly  die  at  the  end  of  a  year,  and  that  it  had 


THE  ABBE   BIROTTEAU.  187 

been  known  that  a  soft  roll  eaten  without  drinking  for  a  few 
days  would  cure  sciatica ;  that  all  the  workmen  who  had  been 
employed  in  the  destruction  of  the  Abbey  of  Saint-Martin 
had  died  within  six  months  ;  that  a  certain  prefet  had  done  his 
utmost  in  Bonaparte's  time  to  ruin  the  towers  of  Saint-Gatien, 
and  a  thousand  other  absurd  stories. 

But  at  the  present  juncture  Birotteau  felt  his  tongue  dead 
within  him ;  so  he  resigned  himself  to  eating  without  trying 
to  converse.  He  soon  thought  that  such  silence  was  perilous 
to  his  digestion,  and  boldly  said,  "  This  is  excellent  coffee  !  " 
But  the  courageous  act  fell  flat. 

After  looking  at  the  narrow  strip  of  sky  above  the  garden, 
between  the  two  black  buttresses  of  Saint-Gatien,  the  abbe 
again  was  brave  enough  to  remark,  "It  will  be  finer  to-day 
than  it  was  yesterday." 

At  this  Mademoiselle  Gamard  did  no  more  than  cast  one  of 
her  most  ingratiating  glances  at  Monsieur  Troubert,  and  then 
turn  her  eyes  full  of  terrible  severity  on  Birotteau,  who  was 
happily  looking  down. 

No  being  of  the  female  sex  was  better  able  to  assume  the 
elegiac  attitude  of  an  old  maid  than  Mademoiselle  Sophie 
Gamard ;  but  to  do  justice  in  describing  a  person  whose  char- 
acter will  give  the  greatest  interest  to  the  trivial  events  of  this 
drama,  and  to  the  antecedent  lives  of  the  figures  playing  a  part 
in  it,  it  will  be  well  here  to  epitomize  the  ideas  of  which  the 
old  maid  is  the  outcome.  The  habits  of  life  form  the  soul,  and 
the  soul  forms  the  countenance.  If  in  society,  as  in  the  uni- 
verse, everything  must  have  a  purpose,  there  yet  are  on  this 
earth  some  existences  of  which  the  use  and  purpose  are  undis- 
coverable ;  morality  and  political  economy  alike  reject  the  in- 
dividual that  consumes  without  producing,  that  fills  a  place  on 
earth  without  diffusing  either  good  or  evil— for  evil,  no  doubt, 
IS  a  form  of  good  of  which  the  results  are  not  immediately 
manifest.  Very  rarely  does  an  old  maid  fail  to  place  herself 
by  her  own  act  in  this  class  of  unproductive  creatures.     Now 


188  THE  CELIBATES. 

if  the  consciousness  of  work  done  gives  productive  beings  a 
sense  of  satisfaction  which  helps  them  to  endure  life,  the 
knowledge  that  they  are  a  burthen  on  others,  or  even  merely 
useless,  must  produce  the  contrary  effect,  and  give  to  the  inert 
a  contempt  for  themselves  as  great  as  that  they  provoke  in 
others.  This  stern  social  reprobation  is  one  of  the  causes 
which,  unknown  to  themselves,  contribute  to  implant  in  their 
soul  the  grievance  which  is  stamped  on  their  faces. 

A  prejudice,  not  perhaps  without  a  basis  of  truth,  every- 
where gives  rise — and  in  France  more  than  elsewhere — to 
marked  disfavor  being  felt  towards  a  woman  with  whom  no 
man  has  chosen  to  share  his  fortunes  or  to  endure  the  woes 
of  life.  And  an  age  comes  to  unmarried  women  when  the 
world,  rightly  or  wrongly,  condemns  them  on  the  strength 
of  the  disdain  to  which  they  are  victims.  If  ugly,  the  amia- 
bility of  their  nature  ought  to  have  redeemed  the  imperfec- 
tions of  their  persons ;  if  pretty,  their  loneliness  must  have  its 
cause  in  serious  reasons.  It  is  hard  to  decide  which  of  the 
two  classes  is  most  to  be  contemned.  If  their  single  life  is 
deliberately  chosen,  if  it  is  a  determination  to  be  independ- 
ent, neither  men  nor  mothers  can  forgive  them  for  having 
shirked  the  sacrifice  of  woman  by  refusing  to  know  the  pas- 
sions that  make  her  sex  pathetic.  To  reject  its  sufferings  is  to 
forego  its  poetry,  to  cease  to  deserve  the  sweet  consolations  to 
which  a  mother  has  always  uncontested  rights.  Then  the 
generous  feelings,  the  exquisite  qualities  of  woman,  can  only 
be  developed  by  constant  exercise.  When  she  remains  un- 
married, a  creature  of  the  female  sex  is  a  self-contradiction  : 
egoistical  and  cold,  she  fills  us  with  horror. 

This  pitiless  verdict  is  unfortunately  too  just  for  old  maids 
to  misinterpret  its  motives.  These  ideas  germinate  in  their 
heart  as  naturally  as  the  effects  of  their  desolate  life  are  im- 
printed on  their  features.  Thus  they  wither,  because  the 
constant  expansion,  or  the  happiness  that  blooms  in  a  woman's 
face  and  lends  softness  to  her  movements,  has  never  existed 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAU.  189 

in  them.  Then  they  grow  harsh  and  discontented,  because  a 
creature  that  fails  of  its  purpose  is  unhappy,  it  suffers,  and 
suffering  brings  forth  viciousness.  In  fact,  before  an  un- 
married woman  spites  herself  for  her  loneliness,  she  accuses 
the  whole  world,  and  from  accusation  there  is  but  one  step  to 
the  desire  for  revenge. 

Again,  the  ill  grace  that  disfigures  their  persons  is  an 
inevitable  outcome  of  their  life.  Never  having  felt  the  neces- 
sity to  please,  elegance  and  good  taste  are  unknown  to  them. 
This  feeling  gradually  leads  them  to  choose  everything  to 
suit  their  own  convenience  at  the  cost  of  what  might  be 
agreeable  to  others.  Without  quite  understanding  their  dis- 
similarity to  other  women,  at  last  they  observe  it  and  suffer 
from  it.  Jealousy  is  an  indelible  passion  in  the  female 
heart.  Old  maids  are  jealous  for  nothing,  and  know  only  the 
woes  of  the  single  passion  which  men  can  forgive  in  women 
because  it  flatters  them.  Thus  tormented  on  every  side,  and 
compelled  to  reject  the  development  of  their  nature,  old 
maids  are  always  conscious  of  a  moral  uneasiness  to  which 
they  never  become  accustomed.  Is  it  not  hard  at  any  age, 
especially  for  a  woman,  to  read  a  feeling  of  repugnance  on 
every  face,  when  it  ought  to  have  been  her  fate  to  inspire 
none  but  sensations  of  kindliness  in  the  hearts  of  those  about 
her  ?  Hence  an  old  maid's  glance  is  always  askance,  not  so 
much  from  modesty  as  from  fear  and  shame. 

Now,  it  is  impossible  that  a  person  perpetually  at  war  with 
herself,  or  at  loggerheads  with  life,  should  leave  others  in 
peace  and  never  envy  their  happiness.  This  world  of  gloomy 
ideas  lay  complete  in  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  dull  gray  eyes  ; 
and  the  broad,  dark  circle  in  which  they  were  set  spoke  of 
the  long  struggle  of  her  solitary  life.  All  the  wrinkles  on  her 
face  were  straight  lines.  The  form  of  her  brow,  head,  and 
cheeks  was  characterized  by  rigidity  and  hardness.  Without 
heeding  them,  she  left  the  hairs,  once  brown,  of  two  or  three 
moles  on  her  chin  to  grow  as  they  would.     Her  thin  lips 


190  THE  CELIBATES. 

scarcely  covered  her  long  but  sufficiently  white  teeth.  She 
was  dark,  and  her  hair  had  once  been  black,  but  terrible 
headaches  had  turned  it  white.  This  disaster  led  her  to  wear 
a  front ;  but  not  knowing  how  to  put  it  on  so  as  to  conceal 
the  junction,  there  often  was  a  small  gap  between  her  cap- 
border  and  the  black  ribbon  that  fastened  this  half-wig,  very 
carelessly  curled.  Her  gown,  of  thin  silk  in  summer,  of 
merinos  in  winter,  and  always  of  Carmelite  brown,  fitted  her 
ungraceful  figure  and  thin  arms  rather  too  closely.  Her 
collar,  always  limp,  betrayed  a  throat  whose  reddish  skin  was 
as  finely  lined  as  an  oak  leaf  looked  at  in  the  light. 

Her  parentage  accounted  for  the  faults  of  her  figure.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  a  dealer  in  fire-logs,  a  peasant  who  had 
risen  in  the  world.  At  eighteen  she  might  have  been  fresh 
and  plump,  but  not  a  trace  was  now  left  either  of  the  white 
skin  or  the  fine  color  she  boasted  of  having  then  had.  The 
hues  of  her  complexion  had  acquired  the  dull  pallor  common 
enough  in  very  devout  persons.  An  aquiline  nose  was  of  all 
her  features  that  which  most  strongly  expressed  the  despotism 
of  her  ideas,  just  as  the  flatness  of  her  forehead  revealed  her 
narrowness  of  mind.  Her  movements  had  an  odd  abruptness 
bereft  of  all  grace  \  and  only  to  see  her  pull  her  handkerchief 
out  of  her  bag  and  loudly  blow  her  nose  would  have  told  you 
what  her  character  and  habits  were.  Fairly  tall,  she  held  her- 
self very  upright,  justifying  the  remark  of  a  naturalist,  who 
explains  the  stiffness  of  old  maids  physiologically  by  declar- 
ing that  all  their  joints  anchylose.  She  walked  so  that  the 
motion  did  not  distribute  itself  equally  over  her  whole  person, 
or  produce  the  graceful  undulations  that  are  so  attractive  in  a 
woman ;  she  moved  all  of  a  piece,  so  to  speak,  seeming  to 
lift  herself  at  every  step,  like  the  statue  of  the  Commenda- 
tore. 

In  her  few  moments  of  good-humor  she  would  give  it  out, 
as  all  old  maids  do,  that  she  could  have  been  married,  but 
that,  happily,  she  had  found  out  her  lover's  faithlessness  in 


THE  ABB  A  BIROTTEAU.  191 

time,  and  she  thus,  without  knowing  it,  passed  judgment  on 
her  heart  in  favor  of  her  sense  of  self-interest. 

This  typical  figure  of  an  old  maid  was  suitably  set  against 
a  background  of  the  grotesque  pattern,  representing  Turkish 
landscapes,  of  a  satin  wall-paper  with  which  the  dining-room 
was  hung.  Mademoiselle  Gamard  habitually  occupied  this 
room,  ornamented  by  two  consoles  and  a  barometer.  In  the 
place  occupied  by  each  priest  was  a  little  footstool  in  worsted 
work  of  faded  hues. 

The  public  sitting-room,  where  she  received  company,  was 
worthy  of  her.  The  room  will  be  at  once  familiar  when  it  is 
known  that  it  went  by  the  name  of  the  yellow  drawing-room ; 
the  hangings  were  yellow,  the  furniture  and  wall-paper  yellow ; 
on  the  chimney-shelf,  in  front  of  a  mirror  with  a  gilt  frame, 
candlesticks  and  a  clock  in  cut-glass  reflected  a  hard  glitter  to 
the  eye.  As  to  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  private  sanctum,  no 
one  had  ever  been  allowed  to  enter  it.  It  could  only  be  con- 
jectured that  it  was  full  of  the  odds  and  ends,  the  shabby 
furniture,  the  rags  and  tatters,  so  to  speak,  which  all  old  maids 
collect  and  cling  to  so  fondly. 

This  was  the  woman  who  was  destined  to  exert  the  greatest 
influence  over  the  Abbe  Birotteau's  latter  days.  Having  failed 
to  exercise  the  energies  bestowed  on  woman  in  the  way  in- 
tended by  nature,  and  urged  by  the  need  of  expending  them, 
this  old  maid  had  thrown  them  into  the  sordid  intrigue,  the 
petty  tittle-tattle  of  provincial  life,  and  the  selfish  scheming 
which  at  last  exclusively  absorbs  all  old  maids. 

Birotteau,  for  his  woe,  had  developed  in  Sophie  Gamard 
the  only  feelings  this  unhappy  creature  could  possibly  know, 
those  of  hatred  ;  these,  till  now  latent,  as  a  result  of  the  calm 
monotony  of  a  country-town  life,  whose  horizon  was  to  her 
more  especially  narrow,  were  presently  to  become  all  the  more 
intense  for  being  wreaked  on  small  things,  and  in  a  narrow 
sphere  of  activity.  Birotteau  was  one  of  those  men  who  are 
predestined  to  suffer  everything,  because,  as  they  never  foresee 


192  THE  CELIBATES. 

anything,  they  can  avoid  nothing ;  everything  seems  to  fall 
on  them. 

"Yes,  it  will  be  fine,"  the  canon  replied  after  a  pause, 
seeming  to  come  out  of  his  meditations  and  to  wish  to  fulfill 
the  laws  of  good  manners. 

Birotteau,  frightened  at  the  time  that  had  elapsed  between 
the  remark  and  the  reply,  since  he,  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  had  swallowed  his  coffee  without  speaking,  left  the  dining- 
room,  where  his  heart  was  held  as  in  a  vise.  Feeling  his  cup 
of  coffee  lie  heavy  on  his  stomach,  he  went  to  walk,  sadly 
enough,  up  and  down  the  narrow  box-edged  paths  which 
marked  out  a  star  in  the  garden.  But  as  he  turned  after  his 
first  round,  he  saw  the  Abbe  Troubert  and  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  standing  at  the  glass  door  of  the  drawing-room ;  he 
with  his  arms  crossed,  as  motionless  as  the  statue  on  a  tomb, 
she  leaning  against  the  shutter-door.  Both,  as  they  watched 
him,  seemed  to  be  counting  the  number  of  his  steps. 

To  a  timid  person  there  is  nothing  so  distressing  as  being 
the  object  of  inquisitive  inspection  ;  when  it  is  made  by  the 
eyes  of  hatred,  the  sort  of  suffering  it  inflicts  becomes  an  in- 
tolerable martyrdom.  Presently  the  abbe  fancied  that  he  was 
hindering  Mademoiselle  Gamard  and  the  canon  from  taking 
their  walk.  This  notion,  inspired  alike  by  fear  and  by  good- 
nature, acquired  such  proportions,  that  he  abandoned  the 
place.  He  went  away,  already  thinking  no  more  of  his  can- 
onry,  so  greatly  was  he  worried  by  the  woman's  maddening 
tyranny. 

By  chance,  and  happily  for  him,  he  was  kept  very  busy  at 
Saint-Gatien,  where  there  were  several  funerals,  a  marriage, 
and  two  baptisms.  This  enabled  him  to  forget  his  troubles. 
When  his  appetite  warned  him  of  the  dinner  hour,  he  took 
out  his  watch  in  some  alarm,  seeing  that  it  was  some  minutes 
past  four.  He  knew  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  punctuality,  so 
he  hurried  home. 

He  saw  the  first  course  brought  down  again  as  he  passed  the 


THR  ABBi:   BIROTTEAU.  198 

kitchen.  Then  on  going  into  the  dining-room,  the  old  maid 
said  to  him  in  a  tone  of  voice  which  betrayed  alike  the  harsh- 
ness of  a  reproof  and  the  glee  of  finding  her  boarder  in  fault, 
"  It  is  half-past  four,  Monsieur  Birotteau ;  you  knew  we  should 
not  wait  for  you." 

The  priest  looked  at  the  dining-room  clock,  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  gauze  wrapper,  intended  to  protect  it  from  dust, 
showed  him  that  his  landlady  had  wound  it  in  the  course  of 
the  morning,  and  had  allowed  herself  the  pleasure  of  setting 
it  faster  than  the  clock  of  Saint-Gatien's.  There  was  nothing 
to  be  said.  The  least  word  of  the  suspicion  he  had  conceived 
would  have  sprung  the  most  terrible  and  plausible  of  those 
explosions  of  eloquence  which  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  like  all 
women  of  her  class,  could  give  vent  to  in  such  cases. 

The  thousand-and-one  vexations  that  a  maidservant  can 
inflict  on  her  master,  or  a  wife  on  her  husband,  in  the  daily 
course  of  private  life,  were  imagined  by  Mademoiselle  Gamard, 
who  heaped  them  on  her  boarder.  The  way  in  which  she 
plotted  her  conspiracies  against  the  poor  abbe's  domestic 
comfort  bore  the  stamp  of  deeply  malignant  genius.  She 
contrived  never  to  be  in  the  wrong. 

By  the  end  of  a  week  after  the  opening  of  this  tale,  his  life 
in  the  house,  and  his  position  towards  Mademoiselle  Gamard, 
revealed  to  him  a  plot,  hatching  for  six  months  past.  So  long 
as  the  old  maid  had  been  covert  in  her  revenge,  and  the  priest 
could  voluntarily  keep  up  his  self-deceit,  refusing  to  believe 
in  her  malevolent  purpose,  the  moral  effects  had  made  no 
great  progress  in  him.  But  since  the  incidents  of  the  dis- 
placement of  the  candlestick  and  the  clock  put  too  fast,  Birot- 
teau could  no  longer  doubt  that  he  was  living  under  the  rule 
of  an  aversion  that  kept  an  ever-watchful  eye  on  him.  From 
this  he  rapidly  sank  into  despair,  forever  seeing  Mademoiselle 
Gamard's  lean  and  talon-like  fingers  ready  to  claw  his  heart. 

The  old  maid,  happy  in  living  on  a  sentiment  so  teeming 
with  excitement  as  revenge  is,  delighted  in  hovering  and 
13 


194  THE   CELIBATES. 

wheeling  above  the  abbe  as  a  bird  of  prey  hovers  and  circles 
over  a  field-mouse  before  seizing  it.  She  had  long  plotted  a 
scheme  which  the  bewildered  priest  could  not  possibly  guess, 
and  which  she  soon  began  to  unfold,  showing  the  genius  that 
can  be  displayed  in  small  things  by  isolated  beings  whose  soul, 
incapable  of  apprehending  the  grandeur  of  true  piety,  has  lost 
itself  in  the  trivialities  of  devotion.  The  last  and  most  frightful 
aggravation  of  his  torments  was  that  the  nature  of  them  pro- 
hibited Birotteau,  an  effusive  man  who  loved  to  be  pitied  and 
comforted,  from  enjoying  the  little  solace  of  relating  them  to 
his  friends.  The  small  amount  of  tact  he  owed  to  his  shyness 
made  him  dread  appearing  ridiculous  by  troubling  himself 
about  such  silly  trifles.  At  the  same  time,  these  silly  trifles 
made  up  his  whole  life,  the  life  he  loved,  full  of  busy  vacuity 
and  vacuous  business,  a  dull,  gray  life,  in  which  too  strong  a 
feeling  was  a  misfortune,  and  the  absence  of  all  excitement  is 
happiness.  Thus  the  poor  abbe's  paradise  had  suddenly  be- 
come a  hell.     In  short,  his  torments  were  intolerable. 

The  terror  with  which  he  contemplated  an  explanation  with 
Mademoiselle  Gamard  grew  daily,  and  the  secret  misfortunes 
which  blighted  every  hour  of  his  old  age  injured  his  health. 
One  morning,  as  he  put  on  his  speckled  blue  stockings,  he 
observed  that  the  circumference  of  his  calf  had  shrunk  by 
eight  lines.  Appalled  at  such  a  terribly  unmistakable  symp- 
tom, he  determined  to  make  an  effort  to  persuade  the  Abb6 
Troubert  to  intervene  officially  between  himself  and  Made- 
moiselle Gamard. 

When  he  found  himself  in  the  presence  of  the  imposing 
canon,  who  came  out  of  a  study  crammed  with  papers,  where 
he  was  always  at  work,  admitting  nobody,  to  receive  him  in  a 
bare  room,  the  abb6  was  almost  ashamed  to  speak  of  Made- 
moiselle Gamard's  petty  aggravations  to  a  man  who  seemed  so 
seriously  occupied.  But  after  having  suffered  all  the  misery 
of  mental  deliberation  which  humble,  weak,  or  irresolute  per- 
sons go  through,  even  with  regard  to  trifles,  he  made  up  his 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAU.  195 

mind  to  explain  the  position  to  the  canon,  not  without  feeling 
his  heart  swollen  by  extraordinary  throbs.  Troubert  listened 
with  a  cold,  grave  air,  trying,  but  in  vain,  to  control  some 
smiles,  which,  to  intelligent  eyes,  might  have  betrayed  the 
satisfaction  of  a  secret  desire.  A  flash  sparkled  in  his  eye 
when  Birotteau  described  to  him,  with  the  eloquence  inspired 
by  true  emotion,  the  bitterness  that  was  incessantly  poured 
out  for  him ;  but  Troubert  at  once  covered  his  eyes  with  his 
hand,  a  gesture  common  to  great  thinkers,  and  preserved  his 
habitually  dignified  attitude. 

When  the  abbe  ceased  speaking,  he  would  have  been  puzzled 
indeed  if  he  had  tried  to  read  any  sign  of  the  feelings  he 
imagined  he  should  excite  in  this  mysterious  priest,  on  his 
face,  mottled  now  with  yellow  patches — yellower  than  even 
his  usual  bilious  complexion.  After  a  moment's  silence,  the 
canon  made  one  of  those  replies  of  which  every  word  must 
have  been  carefully  studied  to  give  them  their  full  bearing, 
but  which  subsequently  showed  to  capable  persons  the  amaz- 
ing depth  of  his  mind  and  the  power  of  his  intellect. 

He  finally  crushed  Birotteau  by  saying  that  all  these  things 
surprised  him  the  more,  because,  but  for  his  brother's  explana- 
tion, he  would  never  have  discerned  them.  He  ascribed  this 
dullness  of  perception  to  his  important  occupations,  to  his 
work,  and  to  the  supremacy  of  certain  lofty  thoughts,  which 
did  not  allow  of  his  heeding  the  trivialities  of  life.  He 
pointed  out,  but  without  assuming  the  airs  of  wishing  to  cen- 
sure the  conduct  of  a  man  whose  years  and  learning  com- 
manded his  respect,  that  "  the  hermits  of  old  rarely  thought 
about  their  food,  or  their  dwelling  in  the  deserts,  where  they 
gave  themselves  up  to  holy  contemplation,"  and  that  "  in  our 
days  the  priest  could,  in  mind,  make  a  desert  for  himself  in 
every  place."  Then,  returning  to  Birotteau,  he  remarked 
that  such  squabbles  were  quite  a  new  thing  to  him.  During 
twelve  years  nothing  of  the  kind  had  ever  arisen  between 
Mademoiselle  Gamard  and  the  venerated  Abbe  Chapeloud. 


196  THE  CELIBATES. 

As  for  himself  he  could,  no  doubt,  act  as  moderator  between 
the  priest  and  their  landlady,  since  his  friendship  for  her  did 
not  overstep  the  limits  imposed  by  the  laws  of  the  church  on 
its  faithful  ministers ;  but  then  justice  would  require  that  he 
should  also  hear  Mademoiselle  Gamard.  At  the  same  time, 
he  discerned  no  change  in  her ;  he  had  always  seen  her  thus ; 
he  had  willingly  yielded  to  some  of  her  vagaries,  knowing 
that  the  excellent  woman  was  kindness  and  sweetness  itself; 
these  little  caprices  of  temper  were  to  be  ascribed  to  the  suf- 
ferings caused  by  a  pulmonary  trouble,  of  which  she  never 
spoke,  resigning  herself  to  it  as  a  true  Christian."  He  ended 
by  saying  that  "  when  he  should  have  lived  a  few  years  longer 
with  mademoiselle,  he  would  appreciate  her  better  and  recog- 
nize the  beauties  of  her  admirable  character." 

The  Abbe  Birotteau  came  away  bewildered.  Under  the 
absolute  necessity  of  taking  counsel  with  himself  alone,  he 
gauged  Mademoiselle  Gamard  by  himself.  The  poor  man 
thought  that  by  absenting  himself  for  a  few  days  this  woman's 
hatred  would  burn  itself  out  for  lack  of  fuel.  So  he  deter- 
mined to  go,  as  he  had  done  before  now,  to  spend  some  time 
at  a  country  place  where  Madame  de  Listom^re  always  went 
at  the  end  of  the  autumn,  a  season  when,  in  Touraine,  the 
sky  is  usually  clear  and  mild.  Poor  man  !  He  was  thus 
carrying  out  the  secret  wishes  of  his  terrible  enemy,  whose 
schemes  could  not  be  thwarted  by  anything  short  of  monk- 
like endurance ;  while  he,  guessing  nothing  and  not  knowing 
his  own  business  even,  was  doomed  to  fall  like  a  lamb  under 
the  first  blow  from  the  butcher. 

Lying  on  the  slope  between  the  town  of  Tours  and  the 
heights  of  Saint-Georges,  facing  the  south,  and  sheltered  by 
cliffs,  Madame  de  Listomdre's  estate  combined  all  the  charms 
of  the  country  with  the  pleasures  of  the  town.  It  was  not 
more  than  a  ten-minutes'  drive  from  the  Bridge  of  Tours  to 
the  gate  of  this  house,  known  as  "  L'Alouette  "  (The  Lark) — 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAU.  197 

an  immense  convenience  in  a  place  where  no  one  will  disturb 
himself  for  any  earthly  thing,  not  even  in  quest  of  pleasure. 

The  poor  Abbe  Birotteau  had  been  about  ten  days  at 
"L'Alouette,"  when  one  morning,  at  the  breakfast  hour,  the 
lodgekeeper  came  to  tell  him  that  Monsieur  Caron  wished  to 
speak  with  him.  Monsieur  Caron  was  a  lawyer  employed  by 
Mademoiselle  Gamard.  Birotteau,  not  remembering  this, 
and  conscious  of  no  litigious  difficulty  to  be  settled  with 
anybody  in  the  world,  left  the  table,  not  without  some 
anxiety,  to  meet  the  lawyer ;  he  found  him  sitting  modestly 
on  the  parapet  of  a  terrace. 

"  Your  intention  of  remaining  no  longer  as  a  resident 
under  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  roof  being  now  quite  evident 
she "  the  man  of  business  began. 

"  Dear  me,  monsieur  !  "  cried  Birotteau,  interrupting  him, 
"  I  never  thought  of  leaving  her." 

**  And  yet,  monsieur,"  the  lawyer  went  on,  "  you  must 
certainly  have  expressed  yourself  to  that  effect  to  made- 
moiselle, since  she  has  sent  me  to  inquire  whether  you  intend 
remaining  long  in  the  country.  The  event  of  a  prolonged 
absence  not  having  been  provided  for  in  your  agreement 
might  give  rise  to  some  discussion.  Now,  as  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  understands  it,  your  board " 

"Monsieur,"  said  Birotteau  in  surprise,  and  again  inter- 
rupting the  lawyer,  "  I  did  not  think  it  could  be  necessary 
to  take  steps,  almost  legal  in  their  nature,  to " 

"  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  wishing  to  preclude  any  difficulty," 
said  Monsieur  Caron,  "has  sent  me  to  come  to  an  under- 
standing with  you." 

"  Very  well,  if  you  will  be  so  obliging  as  to  call  again 
to-morrow,  I,  on  my  part,  will  have  taken  advice." 

"  So  be  it,"  said  Caron  with  a  bow. 

The  scrivener  withdrew.  The  hapless  priest,  appalled  by 
the  pertinacity  of  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  persecution,  went 
back  to  Madame  de  Listomere's  dining-room  looking  quite 


198  THE  CELIBATES. 

upset.     At  his  mere  appearance  every  one  asked  him,  **  Why, 
Monsieur  Birotteau,  what  is  the  matter?" 

The  abbe,  greatly  distressed,  sat  down  without  answering, 
so  overwhelmed  was  he  by  the  vague  vision  of  his  misfortune. 
But  after  breakfast,  when  several  of  his  friends  had  gathered 
round  a  good  fire  in  the  drawing-room,  Birotteau  artlessly  told 
them  the  tale  of  his  catastrophe.  The  hearers,  who  were 
just  beginning  to  be  bored  by  their  stay  in  the  country,  were 
deeply  interested  in  an  intrigue  so  completely  in  keeping 
with  provincial  life.  Everybody  took  the  abb6's  part  against 
the  old  maid. 

"Why!"  cried  Madame  de  Listomere,  "do  you  not 
plainly  see  that  the  Abbe  Troubert  wants  your  rooms?  " 

In  this  place  the  historian  would  have  a  right  to  sketch  this 
lady's  portrait ;  but  it  occurs  to  him  that  even  those  persons 
to  whom  Sterne's  cognomology  is  unknown  could  surely  not 
utter  the  three  words  Madame  de  Listomere  without  seeing 
her — noble  and  dignified,  tempering  the  austerity  of  piety 
by  the  antique  elegance  of  monarchical  and  classic  manners 
and  polite  distinction  ;  kind,  but  a  little  formal ;  speaking 
slightly  through  her  nose;  allowing  herself  to  read  "La 
Nouvelle  Hdoise,"  and  to  go  to  the  play;  still  wearing  her 
own  hair. 

"  The  Abb6  Birotteau  must  certainly  not  yield  to  that 
nagging  old  woman  !  "  cried  Monsieur  de  Listomere,  a  lieu- 
tenant in  the  navy,  spending  a  holiday  with  his  aunt.  "  If 
the  abbe  has  any  courage,  and  will  follow  my  advice,  he  will 
soon  have  recovered  his  peace  of  mind." 

In  short,  everybody  began  to  analyze  Mademoiselle  Gamard's 
proceedings  with  the  acumen  peculiar  to  provincials,  who,  it 
certainly  cannot  be  denied,  possess  the  talent  of  laying  bare 
the  most  secret  human  actions. 

"You  have  not  hit  the  mark,"  said  an  old  landowner  who 
knew  the  country.  "  There  is  something  vfery  serious  under 
this  which  I  have  not  yet  mastered.     The  Abbe  Troubert  is 


THE  ABB&   BIROTTEAU.  199 

far  too  deep  to  be  so  easily  seen  through.     Our  good  friend 

Birotteau  is  only  at  the  beginning  of  his  troubles.  In  the  first 
place,  would  he  be  happy  and  left  in  peace  even  if  he  gave 
up  his  rooms  to  Troubert  ?  I  doubt  it.  If  Caron  came  to 
tell  you,"  he  went  on,  turning  to  the  puzzled  abbe,  "that 
you  had  intended  to  leave  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  with  the 

object  of  getting  you  out  of  her  house Well,  you  will 

have  to  go,  willy  nilly.  That  kind  of  man  never  risks  a 
chance;  they  only  play  when  they  hold  the  trumps," 

This  old  gentleman,  a  certain  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne, 
epitomized  provincial  ideas  as  completely  as  Voltaire  epito- 
mized the  spirit  of  his  time.  This  withered,  little  old  man 
professed  in  matters  of  dress  all  the  indifference  of  a  propri- 
etor whose  estate  has  a  quotable  value  in  the  department. 
His  countenance,  tanned  by  the  sun  of  Touraine,  was  shrewd 
rather  than  clever.  He  was  accustomed  to  weigh  his  words, 
to  consider  his  actions,  and  he  concealed  his  deep  caution 
under  a  delusive  bluntness.  The  very  least  observation  was 
enough  to  discover  that,  like  a  Norman  peasant,  he  would  get 
the  advantage  in  every  stroke  of  business.  He  was  great  in 
cenology — the  favorite  science  of  the  Tourangeaux.  He  had 
managed  to  extend  the  circle  of  one  of  his  estates  by  taking 
in  the  alluvial  land  of  the  Loire  without  getting  into  a  law- 
suit with  the  state.  This  achievement  had  established  his 
reputation  as  a  clever  man.  If,  charmed  by  Monsieur  de 
Bourbonne's  conversation,  you  had  asked  his  biography  of 
one  of  his  fellow-provincials,  "  Oh  !  he  is  a  cunning  old  fox," 
would  have  been  the  proverbial  reply  of  all  who  envied  him, 
and  they  were  many.  In  Touraine,  as  in  most  provinces, 
jealousy  lies  at  the  base  of  the  tongue. 

Monsieur  de  Bourbonne's  remark  caused  a  brief  silence, 
during  which  the  members  of  this  little  committee  seemed  lost 
in  thought. 

At  this  juncture  Mademoiselle  Salomon  de  Villenoix  was 
announced.     She  had  just  come  from  Tours,  prompted  by  her 


200  THE  CELIBATES. 

wish  to  be  of  service  to  Birotteau,  and  the  news  she  brought 
completely  changed  the  aspect  of  affairs.  At  the  moment 
when  she  came  in,  every  one  but  the  landowner  was  advising 
Birotteau  to  hold  his  own  against  Troubert  and  Gamard, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  aristocratic  party,  who  would  sup- 
port him. 

"The  vicar-general,"  said  Mademoiselle  Salomon,  "who 
has  all  the  promotions  in  his  hands,  has  just  been  taken  ill, 
and  the  archbishop  has  commissioned  Canon  Troubert  to  act 
in  his  place.  The  nomination  to  the  canonry  now  depends  en- 
tirely on  him.  Now  yesterday,  at  Mademoiselle  delaBlottiere's, 
the  Abbe  Poirel  was  speaking  of  the  annoyances  Monsieur 
Birotteau  occasioned  to  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  in  such  a 
way  as  to  seem  to  justify  the  neglect  which  will  certainly  fall 
on  our  good  abbe.  *  The  Abbe  Birotteau  is  a  man  who  badly 
needed  the  Abbe  Chapeloud,'  said  he,  'and  since  that  vir- 
tuous canon's  death  it  has  been  proved  that '    Then  came 

a  series  of  suppositions  and  calumnies.     You  understand  ?  " 

"Troubert  will  be  made  vicar-general,"  said  Monsieur  de 
Bourbonne  solemnly. 

"Come  now,"  cried  Madame  de  Listom^re,  looking  at 
Birotteau,  "which  would  you  prefer — to  be  made  canon  or  to 
remain  with  Mademoiselle  Gamard?" 

"To  be  made  canon,"  was  the  general  outcry. 

"Well,  then,"  Madame  de  Listomere  went  on,  "  the  Abb6 
Troubert  and  Mademoiselle  Gamard  must  be  allowed  to  have 
their  way.  Have  they  not  conveyed  to  you  indirectly  by 
Caron's  visit  that,  provided  you  consented  to  leave  your 
rooms,  you  shall  be  made  canon.  One  good  turn  for  an- 
other." 

Every  one  exclaimed  at  Madame  de  Listomere's  acumen 
and  sagacity ;  but  her  nephew,  the  Baron  de  Listomere,  said 
in  a  comical  tone  to  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne — 

"  I  should  have  liked  to  see  the  battle  between  the  Gamard 
and  the  Birotteau^ 


THE  ABBE   BIROTTEAU.  201 

But,  for  the  abbe's  worse  luck,  the  forces  were  not  equal, 
with  the  worldly-wise  on  one  side,  and  the  old  maid  upheld 
by  the  Abbe  Troubert  on  the  other.  The  time  was  at  hand 
when  the  struggle  would  become  more  decisive  and  assume  a 
greater  scope  and  immense  proportions. 

By  the  advice  of  Madame  de  Listomere  and  most  of  her 
adherents,  who  were  beginning  to  take  a  passionate  interest 
in  this  intrigue  flung  into  the  vacuity  of  their  country  life,  a 
footman  was  despatched  for  Monsieur  Caron.  The  lawyer 
returned  with  amazing  promptitude,  a  fact  that  alarmed  no 
one  but  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne. 

*'  Let  us  adjourn  any  decision  till  we  have  fuller  informa- 
tion," was  the  advice  of  this  Fabius  in  a  dressing-gown,  whose 
deep  reflections  revealed  to  him  some  abstruse  plan  of  battle 
on  the  Tours  chessboard. 

He  tried  to  enlighten  Birotteau  as  to  the  perils  of  his 
position.  But  the  "old  fox's"  shrewdness  did  not  subserve 
the  frenzy  of  the  moment ;  he  was  scarcely  listened  to. 

The  meeting  between  the  lawyer  and  Birotteau  was  brief. 
The  abb6  came  in  looking  quite  scared,  and  saying,  "  He  re- 
quires me  to  sign  a  paper  declaring  my  decession." 

"What  barbarous  word  is  that?"  said  the  navy  lieutenant. 

"And  what  does  it  mean?"  cried  Madame  de  Listomdre. 

"  It  simply  means  that  the  abbe  is  to  declare  his  readiness 
to  leave  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  house,"  replied  Monsieur  de 
Bourbonne,  taking  a  pinch  of  snuff. 

"Is  that  all?  Sign  it!"  said  Madame  de  Listomere  to 
Birotteau.  "If  you  have  really  made  up  your  mind  to  quit 
her  house,  there  can  be  no  harm  done  by  declaring  your 
will.     The  will  of  Birotteau  !  " 

"That  is  true,"  said  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne,  shutting  his 
snuff-box  with  a  dry  snap,  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  render 
the  full  meaning,  for  it  was  a  language  by  itself.  "But 
writing  is  always  dangerous,"  he  added,  placing  the  snuff-box 
on  the  chimney-shelf  with  a  look  that  terrified  the  abb6. 


202  THE   CELIBATES. 

Birotteau  was  so  bewildered  by  the  upheaval  of  all  his  ideas, 
by  the  swiftness  of  events  which  had  come  on  him  and  found 
him  defenseless,  and  by  the  lightness  with  which  his  friends 
treated  the  most  cherished  circumstances  of  his  lonely  life, 
that  he  remained  motionless,  as  if  lost  in  the  moon,  not  think- 
ing of  anything,  but  listening  and  trying  to  catch  the  sense  of 
the  hasty  words  everybody  else  was  so  ready  with.  He  took 
up  Monsieur  Caron's  document,  and  read  it  as  though  the 
lawyer's  deed  was  in  fact  the  object  of  his  attention ;  but  it 
was  merely  mechanical,  and  he  signed  the  paper  by  which  he 
declared  himself  ready  and  willing  to  give  up  his  residence 
with  Mademoiselle  Gamard  as  well  as  his  board,  as  provided 
by  the  agreement  between  them.  When  Birotteau  had  signed 
the  deed  Caron  took  it,  and  asked  him  where  his  client  was 
to  bestow  the  goods  and  chattels  belonging  to  him.  Birotteau 
mentioned  Madame  de  Listomdre's  house,  and  the  lady  by  a 
nod  consented  to  receive  the  abbe  for  some  days,  never 
doubting  but  that  he  would  ere  long  be  a  canon.  The  old 
landowner  wished  to  see  this  sort  of  act  of  renunciation,  and 
Monsieur  Caron  handed  it  to  him. 

"Why,"  said  he  to  the  abbe,  after  having  read  it,  "is 
there  any  written  agreement  between  you  and  Mademoiselle 
Gamard?     Where  is  it?     What  are  the  conditions?  " 

"The  paper  is  in  my  rooms,"  said  Birotteau. 

"Do  you  know  its  contents?"  the  old  gentleman  asked 
the  lawyer. 

"  No,  monsieur,"  said  Monsieur  Caron,  holding  out  his 
hand  for  the  ominous  document. 

"Ah,  ha!"  said  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne  to  himself, 
"  you,  master  lawyer,  are  no  doubt  informed  of  what  that 
agreement  contains,  but  you  are  not  paid  to  tell  us."  And 
he  returned  the  deed  of  "  decession  "  to  the  lawyer. 

"  Where  am  I  to  put  all  my  furniture?  "  cried  Birotteau, 
"  and  my  books,  my  beautiful  library,  my  nice  pictures,  my 
red  drawing-room — all  my  things,  in  short !  " 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAU.  203 

And  the  poor  man's  despair  at  finding  himself  thus  uprooted 
was  so  guileless,  it  so  perfectly  showed  the  purity  of  his  life, 
and  his  ignorance  of  the  world,  that  Madame  de  Listomere 
and  Mademoiselle  Salomon  said,  to  comfort  him,  and  in  the 
tone  that  mothers  use  when  they  promise  a  child  a  plaything : 

**  There,  there,  do  not  worry  yourself  about  such  silly 
trifles.  We  shall  easily  find  you  a  home  less  cold  and  gloomy 
than  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  house.  If  no  lodging  is  to  be 
found  to  suit  you — well,  one  of  us  will  take  you  as  a  boarder. 
Come,  play  a  hit  at  backgammon.  You  can  call  on  the 
Abbe  Troubert  to-morrow  to  ask  his  support,  and  you  will  see 
how  well  he  will  receive  you." 

Weak-minded  persons  are  reassured  as  easily  as  they  are 
frightened.  So  poor  Birotteau,  dazzled  by  the  prospect  of 
living  with  Madame  de  Listomere,  forgot  the  ruin,  now  irre- 
mediably complete,  of  the  happiness  he  had  so  long  sighed  for 
and  so  thoroughly  reveled  in.  Still,  at  night,  before  falling 
asleep,  with  the  anguish  of  a  man  to  whom  a  removal  and 
the  formation  of  new  habits  were  as  the  end  of  the  world, 
he  tortured  his  mind  to  imagine  where  he  could  find  as  con- 
venient a  home  for  his  library  as  that  corridor.  As  he 
pictured  his  books  astray,  his  furniture  dispersed,  and  his 
home  broken  up,  he  wondered  a  thousand  times  why  his  first 
year  at  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  had  been  so  delightful,  and 
the  second  so  wretched.  And  again  and  again  this  disaster 
was  a  bottomless  pit  in  which  his  mind  was  lost. 

The  canonry  no  longer  seemed  to  him  a  sufficient  compen- 
sation for  so  many  misfortunes ;  he  compared  his  life  to  a 
stocking  in  which  one  dropped  stitch  leads  to  a  ladder  all  the 
way  down  the  web.  Mademoiselle  Salomon  was  left  to  him. 
But,  losing  all  his  old  illusion^,  the  poor  priest  no  longer 
dared  believe  in  a  new  friend. 

In  the  doleful  city  of  old  maids  there  are  several,  especially 
in  France,  whose  life  is  a  sacrifice  nobly  renewed  day  by  day  to 


204  THE   CELIBATES. 

noble  feeling.  Some  remain  proudly  faithful  to  a  heart  which 
death  untimely  snatched  from  them  ;  martyrs  to  love,  they 
learn  the  secret  of  womanliness  of  soul.  Others  succumb  to 
a  family  pride  which,  to  our  shame,  is  daily  waxing  less ; 
they  have  devoted  themselves  to  make  the  fortune  of  a 
brother,  or  to  the  care  of  orphan  nephews ;  such  women  are 
mothers  though  remaining  maids.  These  old  maids  rise  to 
the  highest  heroism  of  their  sex,  by  consecrating  every 
womanly  feeling  to  the  worship  of  misfortune.  They  idealize 
the  concept  of  woman  by  renouncing  all  the  rewards  of  her 
natural  destiny  and  accepting  only  its  penalties.  They  live 
enshrined  in  the  beauty  of  their  self-sacrifice,  and  men  rever- 
ently bow  their  heads  before  their  faded  forms.  Mademoiselle 
de  Sombreuil  is  neither  wife  nor  maid ;  she  was,  and  always 
will  be,  an  embodied  poem. 

Mademoiselle  Salomon  was  one  of  these  heroic  creatures. 
Her  sacrifice  was  religiously  sublime,  inasmuch  as  it  would 
remain  inglorious  after  having  been  a  daily  anguish.  Young 
and  handsome,  she  was  loved  ;  her  lover  lost  his  reason. 
For  five  years  she  had  devoted  herself  with  the  courage  of 
love  to  the  mechanical  joys  of  the  unhappy  man  ;  slie  was 
so  fully  wedded  to  his  madness  that  she  did  not  think 
him  mad. 

She  was  a  woman  of  simple  manners,  frank  in  speech,  with 
a  pale  face  not  devoid  of  character,  though  the  features  were 
regular.  She  never  spoke  of  the  experiences  of  her  life. 
Only,  now  and  then,  the  sudden  shudder  with  which  she 
heard  the  narrative  of  some  dreadful  or  melancholy  incident 
betrayed  in  her  the  fine  qualities  evolved  by  great  sorrows. 
She  had  come  to  live  at  Tours  after  the  death  of  her  com- 
panion in  life.  There  she  could  not  be  appreciated  at  her 
true  value;  she  was  regarded  as  a  "good  creature."  She 
was  very  charitable,  and  attached  herself  by  preference  to  the 
weak  and  helpless.  For  this  reason  she  had,  of  course,  the 
deepest  interest  in  the  unhappy  priest. 


THE  ABB  A  BIROTTEAU.  205 

Mademoiselle  Salomon  de  Villenoix,  driving  into  town 
early  next  morning,  took  Birotteau  with  her,  set  him  down 
on  the  cathedral  quay,  and  left  him  making  his  way  towards 
the  Close,  where  he  was  in  great  haste  to  arrive,  to  save  the 
canonry,  at  any  rate,  from  the  shipwreck,  and  to  superintend 
the  removal  of  his  furniture.  He  rang,  not  without  violent 
palpitations,  at  the  door  of  the  house,  whither  for  fourteen 
years  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  coming,  in  which  he  had 
dwelt,  and  whence  he  was  now  to  be  forever  exiled  after 
dreaming  that  he  might  die  there  in  peace  like  his  friend 
Chapeloud. 

Marianne  was  surprised  to  see  him.  He  told  her  he  had 
come  to  speak  to  Monsieur  Troubert,  and  turned  towards  the 
ground-floor  rooms  in  which  the  canon  lodged ;  but  Marianne 
called  out  to  him — 

' '  The  Abbe  Troubert  is  not  there,  Monsieur  le  Vicaire ;  he 
is  in  your  old  rooms." 

These  words  were  a  fearful  shock  to  Birotteau,  who  at  last 
understood  Troubert's  character,  and  the  unfathomable  depth 
of  revenge  so  slowly  worked  out,  when  he  saw  him  quite  at 
home  in  Chapeloud's  library,  seated  in  Chapeloud's  fine 
Gothic  chair — sleeping,  no  doubt,  in  Chapeloud's  bed,  using 
Chapeloud's  furniture,  contravening  Chapeloud's  will,  in 
short,  disinheriting  Chapeloud's  friend  ; — that  very  Chape- 
loud who  had  for  so  long  penned  him  in  at  Mademoiselle 
Gamard's,  hindered  his  advancement,  and  kept  him  out  of 
the  drawing-rooms  at  Tours.  By  what  magic  wand  had  this 
transformation  been  eff'ected  ?  Were  these  things  no  longer 
Birotteau' s? 

Indeed,  as  he  noted  the  sardonic  expression  with  which 
Troubert  looked  round  on  this  library,  Birotteau  inferred 
that  the  future  vicar-general  was  secure  of  possessing  for  ever 
the  plunder  of  the  two  men  he  had  so  bitterly  hated — Chape- 
loud as  an  enemy,  and  Birotteau  because  in  him  he  still  saw 
Chapeloud.     At  the  sight  a  thousand  ideas  surged  up  in  the 


206  THE   CELIBATES. 

worthy  man's  heart  and  wrapped  him  in  a  sort  of  trance.  He 
stood  motionless,  and,  as  it  were,  fascinated  by  Troubert's 
eye,  which  was  fixed  on  him. 

'*  I  cannot  suppose,  monsieur,"  said  Birotteau  at  last, 
"  that  you  would  wish  to  deprive  me  of  the  things  that  are 
mine.  Though  Mademoiselle  Gamard  may  have  been  impa- 
tient to  move  you,  she  must  surely  be  just  enough  to  allow  me 
time  to  identify  my  books  and  remove  my  furniture." 

"  Monsieur,"  said  the  canon  coldly,  and  betraying  no  sort 
of  feeling  in  his  face,  "  Mademoiselle  Gamard  told  me  yester- 
day that  you  were  leaving  ;  of  the  cause  of  it  I  know  nothing. 
If  she  moved  me  up  here,  it  was  because  she  was  obliged  to  do 
so.  Monsieur  I'Abbe  Poirel  has  taken  my  rooms.  Whether 
the  furniture  in  these  rooms  belongs  to  mademoiselle,  I  know 
not.  If  it  is  yours,  you  know  her  perfect  honesty  ;  the  saint- 
liness  of  her  life  is  a  guarantee  for  it. 

"As  to  myself,  you  know  how  plainly  I  live.  For  fifteen 
years  I  slept  in  a  bare  room,  never  heeding  the  damp,  which 
is  killing  me  by  inches.  At  the  same  time,  if  you  wish  to 
return  to  these  rooms,  I  am  ready  to  give  them  up  to  you." 

As  he  listened  to  this  terrible  speech,  Birotteau  forgot  the 
matter  of  the  canonry;  he  went  downstairs  as  briskly  as  a 
young  man  to  find  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  and  met  her  at  the 
bottom  of  the  stairs  in  the  large  paved  passage  which  joined 
the  two  parts  of  the  house. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  he,  bowing,  and  not  heeding  the 
sour,  sardonic  smile  that  curled  her  lips,  or  the  extraordinary 
fire  that  gave  her  eyes  a  glare  like  a  tiger's,  "  I  cannot  under- 
stand why  you  did  not  wait  till  I  had  removed  my  furniture 
before " 

"What  !"  she  exclaimed,  interrupting  him,  "have  not  all 
your  things  been  taken  to  Madame  de  Listomdre's?" 

"But  my  furniture?" 

"  Did  you  never  read  your  agreement  ?"  cried  she,  in  tones 
which  ought  to  be  expressed  in  musical  notation  to  show  how 


THE  ABB^  BIROTTEAU.  207 

many  shades  hatred  could  infuse  into  the  accentuation  of  every 
word. 

And  Mademoiselle  Gamard  seemed  to  swell,  her  eyes  flashed 
once  more,  and  her  face  beamed  j  her  whole  person  thrilled 
with  satisfaction. 

The  Abbe  Troubert  opened  a  window  to  see  better  to  read 
a  folio  volume. 

Birotteau  stood  as  if  thunder-stricken. 

Mademoiselle  Gamard  trumpeted  at  him,  in  a  voice  as  shrill 
as  a  clarion,  the  following  words  : 

*  *  Was  it  not  agreed  that,  in  the  event  of  your  leaving  my 
house,  your  furniture  was  to  become  mine  to  indemnify  me 
for  the  difference  between  what  you  paid  me  for  your  board 
and  what  I  received  from  the  late  respectable  Abbe  Chape- 
loud?  Now,  as  Monsieur  I'Abbe  Poirel  has  been  made 
canon " 

At  these  last  words  Birotteau  bowed  slightly  as  if  to  take 
leave  ;  then  he  rushed  out  of  the  house.  He  was  afraid  lest, 
if  he  stayed  any  longer,  he  should  faint,  and  so  give  his 
relentless  foes  too  great  a  triumph.  Walking  like  a  drunken 
man,  he  got  back  to  Madame  de  Listomere's  town  house, 
where,  in  a  lower  room,  he  found  his  linen,  clothes,  and 
papers  all  packed  into  a  trunk.  At  the  sight  of  those  relics 
of  his  property,  the  unhappy  priest  sat  down  and  hid  his  face 
in  his  hands  to  hide  his  tears  from  the  sight  of  men.  The 
Abbe  Poirel  was  canon  !  He,  Birotteau,  found  himself  home- 
less, bereft  of  fortune  and  furniture. 

Happily,  Mademoiselle  Salomon  happened  to  drive  past. 
The  doorkeeper,  understanding  the  poor  man's  despair, 
signaled  to  the  coachman.  After  a  few  words  of  explanation 
between  the  lady  and  the  porter,  the  abbe  allowed  himself  to 
be  led  to  his  faithful  friend,  though  he  could  only  answer  her 
in  incoherent  words.  Mademoiselle  Salomon,  alarmed  by  the 
temporary  derangement  of  a  brain  already  so  feeble,  carried 
him  at  once  to  "  L'Alouette,"  ascribing  these  symptoms  of 


208  THE  CELIBATES. 

mental  disturbance  to  the  effect  naturally  produced  on  him 
by  the  Abbe  Poirel's  promotion.  She  knew  nothing  of  the 
hapless  priest's  agreement  with  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  for 
the  excellent  reason  that  he  himself  did  not  know  its  full 
bearing.  And  as  it  is  in  the  nature  of  things  that  comedy 
is  often  mixed  up  with  the  most  pathetic  incidents,  Birot- 
teau's  bewildered  answers  almost  made  Mademoiselle  Salomon 
laugh. 

*'  Chapeloud  was  right,"  said  he;  "  he  is  a  monster." 

**Who?"  said  she. 

**  Chapeloud.     He  has  robbed  me  of  everything." 

"Then  you  mean  Poirel?" 

"No,  Troubert." 

At  length  they  reached  "L'Alouette,"  where  the  priest's 
friends  lavished  on  him  such  effusive  kindness,  that  by  the 
evening  he  grew  calmer,  and  they  could  extract  from  him 
an  account  of  all  that  had  occurred  that  morning. 

Monsieur  de  feourbonne,  always  phlegmatic,  naturally  asked 
to  see  the  agreement  which  ever  since  the  day  before  had 
seemed  to  him  to  contain  the  key  to  the  riddle.  Birotteau 
brought  the  fatal  document  out  of  his  pocket,  and  held  it  out 
to  the  landowner,  who  read  it  hastily,  presently  coming  to  a 
sentence  in  these  terms : 

"  Whereas  there  is  a  difference  of  eight  hundred  francs  a 
year  between  the  price  paid  by  the  late  Monsieur  Chapeloud 
and  the  sum  for  which  the  aforenamed  Sophie  Gamard  agrees 
to  lodge  and  board,  on  the  terms  hereinbefore  stated,  the  said 
Francois  Birotteau ;  whereas  the  said  Francois  Birotteau  fully 
acknowledges  that  it  is  out  of  his  power  for  some  years  to 
come  to  pay  the  full  price  paid  by  Mademoiselle  Gamard's 
boarders,  and  more  especially  by  the  Abbe  Troubert ;  and, 
finally,  whereas  the  said  Sophie  Gamard  has  advanced  certain 
sums  of  money,  the  said  Birotteau  hereby  pledges  himself  to 
bequeath  to  her,  as  an  indemnity,  the  furniture  of  which  he 
may  be  possessed  at  the  time  of  his  decease  ;  or  in  the  event 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAU.  209 

of  his  voluntarily  departing,  for  whatever  cause  or  reason, 
and  quitting  the  premises  at  present  let  to  him,  and  no  longer 
availing  himself  of  the  benefits  contracted  for  in  the  agree- 
ment made  by  Mademoiselle  Gamard  hereinbefore " 

**  Heaven  above  us  !  What  impudence  !  "  exclaimed  Mon- 
sieur de  Bourbonne.  *  *  And  what  claws  the  said  Sophie 
Gamard  has  ! ' ' 

Poor  Birotteau,  never  conceiving  in  his  childish  brain  of 
any  cause  which  could  ever  separate  him  from  Mademoiselle 
Gamard,  had  counted  on  dying  under  her  roof.  He  had  not 
the  least  recollection  of  this  clause,  of  which  the  terms  had 
not  even  been  discussed  at  the  time  when,  in  his  eagerness  to 
lodge  with  the  old  maid,  he  would  have  signed  all  the  docu- 
ments she  might  have  chosen  to  lay  before  him.  His  inno- 
cence was  so  creditable,  and  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  conduct 
so  atrocious ;  there  was  something  so  deplorable  in  the  fate 
of  this  hapless  sexagenarian,  and  his  weakness  made  him  so 
pitiable,  that  in  a  first  impulse  of  indignation  Madame  de 
Listomere  exclaimed,  "  I  am  the  cause  of  your  having  signed 
the  act  that  has  ruined  you ;  I  ought  to  make  up  to  you  for 
the  comfort  you  have  lost." 

"But,"  said  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne,  "such  proceedings 
constitute  a  fraud  ;  there  are  grounds  for  an  action " 

"  Good,  Birotteau  shall  bring  an  action.  If  he  loses  it 
at  Tours,  he  will  win  it  at  Orleans ;  if  he  loses  it  at  Orleans, 
he  will  win  it  at  Paris  !  "  cried  the  Baron  de  Listomere. 

"If  he  means  to  bring  an  action,  I  should  advise  him  first 
to  resign  his  benefice  in  the  cathedral,"  said  Monsieur  de 
Bourbonne  calmly. 

"  We  will  take  legal  advice,"  replied  Madame  de  Listo- 
mdre;  *'  and  we  will  bring  an  action  if  we  ought.  But  this 
business  is  so  disgraceful  for  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  and  may 
prove  so  damaging  to  the  Abbe  Troubert,  that  we  can  surely 
effect  a  compromise." 

After  mature  deliberation,  everybody  promised  to  assist  the 
14 


210  THE  CELIBATES. 

Abb6  Birotteau  in  the  struggle  that  must  ensue  between  him, 
his  enemies,  and  their  allies.  A  confident  presentiment,  an 
indescribable  provincial  instinct  prompted  every  one  to  com- 
bine the  names  of  Troubert  and  Gamard.  But  not  a  soul  of 
those  then  assembled  at  Madame  de  Listomere's,  excepting 
the  "  old  fox,"  had  any  accurate  notion  of  the  importance  of 
such  a  conflict. 

Monsieur  de  Bourbonne  took  the  poor  priest  into  a  corner. 

"Of  all  the  fourteen  persons  present,"  said  he  in  a  low 
voice,  "  not  one  will  be  still  on  your  side  within  a  fortnight. 
If  you  then  want  to  call  in  help,  you  will  perhaps  find  no  one 
but  myself  bold  enough  to  undertake  your  defense,  because  I 
know  the  country,  men,  and  things,  and,  better  still,  their 
interests.  All  your  friends  here,  though  full  of  good  inten- 
tions, are  starting  on  the  wrong  road,  which  you  can  never 
get  out  of.  Listen  to  my  advice.  If  you  want  to  live  in 
peace,  give  up  your  office  in  Saint-Gatien  and  leave  Tours. 
Tell  no  one  where  you  go,  but  seek  a  cure  of  souls  far  from 
here,  where  this  man  Troubert  can  never  again  come  across 
you." 

**  Leave  Tours  !  "  cried  the  abbe,  with  unspeakable  dismay. 

It  was  to  him  a  form  of  death.  Was  it  not  tearing  up  all 
the  roots  by  which  he  held  to  the  world?  Celibates  make 
habits  take  the  place  of  feelings.  And  when  to  this  system 
of  ideas,  by  which  they  go  through  life  rather  than  live,  they 
add  a  weak  nature,  external  things  have  an  astonishing  do- 
minion over  them.  Birotteau  had  really  become  a  sort  of 
vegetable ;  to  transplant  it  was  to  endanger  its  guileless  func- 
tions. Just  as  a  tree,  in  order  to  live,  must  always  find  the 
same  juices  at  hand,  and  always  send  its  filaments  into  the 
same  soil,  so  Birotteau  must  always  patter  round  Saint-Gatien, 
always  trot  up  and  down  the  spot  on  the  mall  where  he  was 
wont  to  walk,  always  go  through  the  same  familiar  streets, 
and  constantly  frequent  the  three  drawing-rooms  where  even- 
ing after  evening  he  played  whist  or  backgammon. 


THE  ABBi:  BIROTTEAU.  211 

"To  be  sure — I  was  not  thinking,"  replied  Monsieur  de 
Bourbonne,  looking  compassionately  at  the  priest. 

Before  long  all  Tours  knew  that  Madame  la  Baronne  de 
Listomere,  widow  of  a  lieutenant-general,  had  given  a  home 
to  the  Abbe  Birotteau,  vicar  of  Saint-Gatien.  This  fact,  on 
which  several  persons  threw  doubts,  cut  short  all  questions 
and  gave  definiteness  to  party  divisions,  especially  when 
Mademoiselle  Salomon  was  the  first  to  dare  speak  of  fraud 
and  an  action  at  law. 

Mademoiselle  Gamard,  with  the  subtle  vanity  and  the 
fanatical  sense  of  personal  importance  that  are  characteristic 
of  old  maids,  considered  herself  greatly  aggrieved  by  the  line 
of  conduct  taken  by  Madame  de  Listomdre.  The  Baroness 
was  a  woman  of  high  rank,  elegant  in  her  habits,  whose  good 
taste,  polished  manners,  and  genuine  piety  were  beyond 
dispute.  By  sheltering  Birotteau  she  formally  gave  the  lie  to 
all  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  asseverations,  indirectly  censured 
her  conduct,  and  seemed  to  sanction  the  abbe's  complaints  of 
his  former  landlady. 

For  the  better  comprehension  of  this  story,  it  is  necessary 
here  to  explain  how  much  power  Mademoiselle  Gamard  de- 
rived from  the  discernment  and  analytical  spirit  with  which 
old  women  can  account  to  themselves  for  the  actions  of 
others,  and  to  set  forth  the  resources  of  her  faction.  Escorted 
by  the  always  taciturn  Abbe  Troubert,  she  spent  her  evenings 
in  four  or  five  houses  where  a  dozen  persons  were  wont  to 
meet,  allied  by  common  tastes  and  analogous  circumstances. 
There  were  two  or  three  old  men,  wedded  to  the  whims  and 
tittle-tattle  of  their  cooks ;  five  or  six  old  maids,  who  spent 
their  days  in  sifting  the  words  and  scrutinizing  the  proceed- 
ings of  their  neighbors  and  those  a  little  below  them  in  the 
social  scale ;  and,  finally,  several  old  women  wholly  occupied 
in  distilling  scandal,  in  keeping  an  exact  register  of  every- 
body's fortune,  and  a  check  on  everybody's  actions.     They 


212  THE  CELIBATES. 

foretold  marriages,  and  blamed  their  friends'  conduct  quite  as 
harshly  as  their  enemies'.  These  persons,  filling  in  the  town 
a  position  analogous  to  the  capillary  vessels  of  a  plant,  imbibed 
news  with  the  thirst  of  a  leaf  for  the  dew,  picked  up  the  secrets 
of  every  household,  discharged  them  and  transmitted  them 
mechanically  to  Monsieur  Troubert,  as  leaves  communicate 
to  the  plant  the  moisture  they  have  absorbed.  Thus,  every 
evening  of  the  week,  these  worthy  bigots,  prompted  by  the 
craving  for  excitement  which  exists  in  every  one,  struck  an 
accurate  balance  of  the  position  of  the  town  with  a  sagacity 
worthy  of  the  council  of  ten,  and  made  an  armed  police  out 
of  the  unerring  espionage  to  which  our  passions  give  rise. 
Then,  as  soon  as  they  had  found  the  secret  motive  of  any 
event,  their  conceit  led  them  to  appropriate,  severally,  the 
wisdom  of  their  Sanhedrim,  and  to  give  importance  to  their 
gossip  in  their  respective  circles. 

This  idle  and  busybody  assembly,  invisible  though  omnis- 
cient, speechless  but  for  ever  talking,  had  at  that  time  an 
influence  which  was  apparently  harmless  in  view  of  its  con- 
temptibility,  but  which  nevertheless  could  be  terrible  when  it 
was  animated  by  a  strong  motive.  Now  it  was  a  very  long 
time  since  any  event  had  occurred  within  range  of  tlieir  lives 
to  compare  in  general  importance  to  each  and  all  with  the 
contest  between  Birotteau,  supported  by  Madame  de  Listo- 
mdre,  and  the  Abbe  Troubert  with  Mademoiselle  Gamard. 
In  fact,  the  three  drawing-rooms  of  Madame  de  Listomere, 
Mademoiselle  Merlin  de  la  Blottiere,  and  Mademoiselle  de 
Villenoix,  being  regarded  as  a  hostile  camp  by  those  where 
Mademoiselle  Gamard  visited,  there  lay  behind  this  quarrel  a 
strong  party  spirit  with  all  its  vanities.  It  was  the  struggle 
of  the  Roman  senate  and  people  in  a  molehill,  or  a  tempest 
in  a  glass  of  water,  as  Montesquieu  said  in  speaking  of  the 
republic  of  San  Marino,  where  public  officials  held  their 
places  but  a  day,  so  easy  was  it  to  seize  despotic  power. 

But  this  storm  in  a  teacup  evolved  as  many  passions  in  the 


THE  ABB£  BIROTTEAU.  213 

actors  as  would  have  sufficed  to  direct  the  largest  social  inter- 
ests. Is  it  not  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  time  flies  swiftly 
only  to  those  whose  hearts  are  a  prey  to  such  vast  projects  as 
trouble  life  and  make  it  boil  ?  The  Abbe  Troubert's  hours 
were  spent  as  busily,  flew  loaded  with  thoughts  as  anxious, 
and  marked  by  despair  and  hopes  as  deep  as  could  the  rack- 
ing hours  of  the  man  of  ambition,  the  gamester,  or  the  lover. 
God  alone  knows  the  secret  of  the  energy  we  put  forth  to 
win  the  occult  triumphs  we  achieve  over  men,  or  things,  or 
ourselves.  Though  we  do  not  always  know  whither  we  are 
going,  we  know  full  well  the  fatigues  of  the  voyage.  Still,  if 
the  historian  may  be  allowed  to  digress  from  the  drama  he  is 
narrating,  to  assume  for  a  moment  the  functions  of  the  critic 
— if  he  may  invite  you  to  glance  at  the  lives  of  these  old 
maids  and  of  these  two  priests,  to  investigate  the  causes  of  the 
misfortune  which  vitiated  their  inmost  core — you  will  perhaps 
find  it  proved  to  a  demonstration  that  man  must  necessarily 
experience  certain  passions  if  he  is  to  evolve  those  qualities 
which  give  nobleness  to  life,  which  expand  its  limits  and 
silence  the  selfishness  natural  to  all  beings. 

Madame  de  Listomere  returned  to  town,  not  knowing  that 
for  five  or  six  days  past  several  of  her  friends  had  been  obliged 
to  dispute  a  rumor  concerning  herself,  and  accepted  by  some, 
though  she  would  have  laughed  at  it  had  she  heard  of  it, 
which  attributed  her  affection  for  her  nephew  to  almost  crim- 
inal causes. 

She  took  the  abbe  to  see  her  lawyer,  who  did  not  think 
an  action  an  easy  matter.  The  abbe's  friends,  confident  in 
the  feeling  that  comes  of  the  justice  of  a  good  case,  or  else 
dilatory  about  proceedings  which  did  not  concern  them 
personally,  had  postponed  the  preliminary  inquiry  till  the 
day  when  they  should  return  to  Tours.  Thus  Mademoiselle 
Gamard's  allies  had  been  able  to  make  the  first  move,  and 
had  told  the  story  in  a  way  unfavorable  to  the  Abbe  Birotteau. 
Hence  the  man  of  law,  whose  clients  consisted  exclusively  of 


214  THE   CELIBATES. 

the  pious  folks  of  the  town,  very  much  astonished  Madame 
de  Listomere  by  urging  her  on  no  account  to  be  mixed  up  in 
such  proceedings  ;  and  he  closed  the  interview  by  saying  that 
**  he,  at  any  rate,  would  not  undertake  the  case,  because,  by 
the  terms  of  the  agreement.  Mademoiselle  Garaard  was  right 
in  the  eye  of  the  law ;  that  in  equity,  that  is  to  say,  out  of 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  court.  Monsieur  Birotteau  would  appear 
in  the  eyes  of  the  bench  and  of  all  honest  folks  to  have  fallen 
away  from  the  meek,  peace-loving,  and  conciliatory  character 
he  had  hitherto  enjoyed  ;  that  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  regarded 
as  a  gentle  person  and  easy  to  live  with,  had  accommodated 
Birotteau  by  lending  the  money  needed  to  pay  the  succession 
duties  arising  from  Chapeloud's  bequest,  without  demanding 
any  receipt ;  that  Birotteau  was  not  of  an  age,  nor  of  a  na- 
ture, to  sign  a  document  without  knowing  what  it  contained 
and  recognizing  its  importance;  and  that  as  he  had  ceased  to 
live  at  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  after  only  two  years'  residence, 
whereas  his  friend  Chapeloud  had  been  with  her  for  twelve 
years  and  Troubert  for  fifteen,  it  would  only  be  in  accordance 
with  some  plan  best  known  to  himself.  That,  consequently, 
the  action  would  be  generally  considered  as  an  act  of  ingrati- 
tude," etc. 

After  seeing  Birotteau  to  the  head  of  the  stairs,  the  lawyer 
detained  Madame  de  Listomere  a  moment  as  he  showed  her 
out,  and  besought  her,  as  she  loved  her  peace  of  mind,  to 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  affair. 

In  the  evening,  however,  the  hapless  abbe,  as  miserable  as 
a  criminal  in  the  condemned  cell  at  Bic&tre  while  awaiting 
the  result  of  his  petition  to  the  court  of  appeal,  could  not 
keep  himself  from  telling  his  friends  of  the  result  of  his  visit 
to  the  lawyer,  at  the  hour  before  the  card-parties  were  made 
up,  when  the  little  circle  was  assembling  round  Madame  de 
Listomdre's  fire. 

"  I  know  no  lawyer  in  Tours,  excepting  the  solicitor  for 
the  Liberal  party,  who  would  undertake  the  case,  unless  he 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAIT,  215 

meant  to  lose  it,"  exclaimed  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne,  "and 
I  do  not  advise  you  to  embark  on  it." 

"  Well,  it  is  a  rascally  shame  !  "  said  the  navy  lieutenant. 
"  I  myself  will  take  the  abbe  to  see  that  lawyer  !  " 

"  Then  go  after  dark,"  said  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne,  inter- 
rupting him. 

"Why?" 

"I  have  just  heard  that  the  Abbe  Troubert  is  appointed 
vicar-general  in  the  place  of  him  who  died  the  day  before 
yesterday." 

"  Much  I  care  for  the  Abbe  Troubert !  " 

Unluckily,  the  Baron  de  Listomere,  a  man  of  six-and- 
thirty,  did  not  see  the  sign  made  to  him  by  Monsieur  de 
Bourbonne  warning  him  to  weigh  his  words,  and  pointing 
significantly  at  a  town  councilor  who  was  known  to  be  a 
friend  of  Troubert's.  So  the  officer  went  on  with  his  denun- 
ciations of  the  abbe's  treatment : 

"  If  Monsieur  Troubert  is  a  rogue " 

"Dear  me,"  said  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne,  "why  bring 
the  Abbe  Troubert's  name  into  a  matter  with  which  he  has 
no  concern  whatever?" 

"Nay,"  said  the  lieutenant,  "is  he  not  in  the  enjoyment 
of  the  Abbe  Birotteau's  furniture?  I  remember  having 
called  on  Monsieur  Chapeloud  and  seeing  two  valuable  pic- 
tures. Suppose  they  are  worth  ten  thousand  francs  ?  Can 
you  believe  that  Monsieur  Birotteau  ever  intended  to  give,  in 
return  for  two  years'  board  with  this  Gamard  woman,  ten 
thousand  francs,  when  the  library  and  furniture  are  worth 
almost  as  much  more  ?  " 

The  abbe  opened  his  eyes  very  wide  on  hearing  that  he 
had  ever  owned  such  an  enormous  fortune.  And  the  Baron 
went  on  vehemently  to  the  end. 

"  By  Jove  !  Monsieur  Salmon,  an  expert  from  the  Paris 
gallery,  happens  to  be  here  on  a  visit  to  his  mother-in-law. 
I  will  go  to  him  this  very  evening  with  Monsieur  I'Abbd,  and 


2i6  THE   CELIBATES. 

beg  him  to  value  the  pictures.     From  there  I  will  take  him  to 
that  lawyer." 

Two  days  after  this  conversation  the  action  had  taken 
shape.  The  solicitor  to  the  Liberal  party,  now  Birotteau's 
attorney,  cast  some  obloquy  on  the  abbe's  case.  The  opposi- 
tion to  the  government,  and  some  persons  known  to  love 
neither  priests  nor  religion — two  things  which  many  people 
fail  to  distinguish — took  up  the  matter,  and  the  whole  town 
was  talking  of  it.  The  expert  from  Paris  had  valued  "The 
Virgin,"  by  Le  Valentin,  and  "The  Christ,"  by  Lebrun,  at 
eleven  thousand  francs ;  they  were  both  choice  examples.  As 
to  the  bookcase  and  the  Gothic  furniture,  the  fashionable 
taste,  daily  growing  in  Paris,  for  that  style  of  work  gave  them 
an  immediate  value  of  twelve  thousand  francs.  Ixi  short, 
the  expert,  on  examination,  estimated  the  contents  of  the 
rooms  at  ten  thousand  crowns. 

Now,  it  was  obvious  that  as  Birotteau  had  never  intended 
to  give  Mademoiselle  Gamard  this  immense  sum  in  payment 
of  the  little  money  he  might  owe  her  in  virtue  of  the  stipu- 
lated indemnity,  there  were  grounds,  legally  speaking,  for  a 
new  contract,  otherwise  the  old  maid  would  be  guilty  of  un- 
intentional fraud.  So  the  lawyer  on  Birotteau's  behalf  began 
by  serving  a  writ  on  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  formulating  the 
abbe's  case.  This  statement,  though  exceedingly  severe,  and 
supported  by  quotations  from  leading  judgments,  and  con- 
firmed by  certain  articles  of  the  code,  was  at  the  same  time  a 
masterpiece  of  legal  logic,  and  so  evidently  condemned  the 
old  maid,  that  thirty  or  forty  copies  were  maliciously  circu- 
lated in  the  town  by  the  opposite  party. 

A  few  days  after  this  commencement  of  hostilities  between 
the  old  maid  and  Birotteau,  the  Baron  de  Listomere,  who,  as 
commander  of  a  corvette,  hoped  to  be  included  in  the  next 
list  of  promotions,  which  had  been  expected  for  some  time  at 
the  navy  board,  received  a  letter,  in  which  a  friend  informed 


THE  ABB£  BIROTTEAU.  217 

him  that  there  was,  on  the  contrary,  some  idea  in  the  office 
of  placing  him  on  the  retired  list.  Greatly  amazed  by  this 
news,  he  at  once  set  out  for  Paris,  and  appeared  at  the  minis- 
ter's next  reception.  This  official  himself  seemed  no  less  sur- 
prised, and  even  laughed  at  the  fears  expressed  by  the  Baron 
de  Listomere. 

Next  day,  in  spite  of  the  minister's  words,  the  Baron  in- 
quired at  the  office.  With  an  indiscretion,  such  as  is  not 
unfrequently  committed  by  heads  of  departments  for  their 
friends,  a  secretary  showed  him  a  minute  confirming  the  fatal 
news,  ready  drawn  up,  but  which  had  not  yet  been  submitted 
to  the  minister,  in  consequence  of  the  illness  of  a  head  clerk. 
The  Baron  at  once  went  to  call  on  an  uncle,  who,  being  a 
deputy,  could  without  delay  meet  the  minister  at  the  chamber, 
and  begged  him  to  sound  his  excellency  as  to  his  views,  since 
to  him  this  meant  the  sacrifice  of  his  whole  career.  He 
awaited  the  closing  of  the  sitting  in  his  uncle's  carriage  in  the 
greatest  anxiety. 

Long  before  the  end  his  uncle  came  out,  and  as  they  drove 
home  to  his  house  he  asked  the  Baron — 

"What  the  devil  led  you  to  make  war  against  the  priest- 
hood ?  The  minister  told  me  at  once  that  you  had  put  your- 
self at  the  head  of  the  Liberal  party  at  Tours.  Your  opinions 
are  detestable,  you  do  not  follow  the  line  laid  down  by  the 
government,  and  what  not !  His  phrases  were  as  confused  as 
if  he  were  still  addressing  the  chamber.  So  then  I  said  to 
him,  'Come,  let  us  understand  each  other.'  And  his  excel- 
lency ended  by  confessing  that  you  were  in  a  scrape  with  the 
lord  high  almoner.  In  short,  by  making  some  inquiries 
among  my  colleagues,  I  learned  that  you  had  spoken  with 
much  levity  of  a  certain  Abbe  Troubert,  who,  though  but  a 
vicar-general,  is  the  most  important  personage  of  the  province, 
where  he  represents  the  ecclesiastical  power.  I  answered  for 
you  to  the  minister  in  person.  My  noble  nephew,  if  you  want 
to  get  on  in  the  world,  maUe  no  enemies  in  the  church. 


218  THE   CELIBATES. 

**  Now,  go  back  to  Tours,  and  make  your  peace  with  this 
devil  of  a  vicar-general.  Remember  that  vicars-general  are 
men  with  whom  you  must  always  live  in  peace.  Deuce  take 
it !  When  we  are  all  trying  to  re-establish  the  church,  to 
cast  discredit  on  the  priests  is  a  blunder  in  a  ship's  lieuten- 
ant who  wants  his  promotion.  If  you  do  not  make  it  up  with 
this  Abbe  Troubert,  you  need  not  look  to  me  ;  I  shall  cast 
you  off.  The  minister  for  church  affairs  spoke  to  me  of  the 
man  just  now  as  certain  to  be  a  bishop.  If  Troubert  took  an 
aversion  for  our  family,  he  might  hinder  my  name  from  appear- 
ing in  the  next  batch  of  peers.     Do  you  understand  ?  ' ' 

This  speech  explained  to  the  navy  lieutenant  what  Trou- 
bert's  secret  occupations  were,  when  Birotteau  so  stupidly 
remarked,  "  I  cannot  think  what  good  he  gains  by  sitting  up 
all  night!" 

The  canon's  position,  in  the  midst  of  the  feminine  senate 
which  so  craftily  kept  a  surveillance  over  the  province,  as 
well  as  his  personal  capabilities,  had  led  to  his  being  chosen 
by  the  church  authorities  from  among  all  the  priests  in  the 
town  to  be  the  unacknowledged  proconsul  of  Touraine.  Arch- 
bishop, general,  prefet — high  and  low  were  under  his  occult 
domain. 

The  Baron  de  Listom^re  had  soon  made  up  his  mind. 

*'I  have  no  notion,"  said  he  to  his  uncle,  "of  receiving 
another  ecclesiastical  broadside  below  the  water-line." 

Three  days  after  this  diplomatic  interview  between  the 
uncle  and  nephew,  the  sailor,  who  had  suddenly  returned  to 
Tours  by  the  mail-coach,  explained  to  his  aunt,  the  very 
evening  of  his  arrival,  all  the  danger  that  would  be  incurred 
by  the  Listom^re  family  if  they  persisted  in  defending  that 
idiot  Birotteau.  The  Baron  had  caught  Monsieur  de  Bour- 
bonne  at  the  moment  when  the  old  gentleman  was  taking  up 
his  stick  and  hat  to  leave  after  his  rubber.  The  "  old  fox's  " 
intelligence  was  indispensable  to  throw  a  light  on  the  reefs 
among  which  the  Listomeres  had  been  entangled ;  he  rose  so 


THE  ABB£  BIROTTEAU.  219 

early  to  seek  his  hat  and  stick,  only  to  be  stopped  by  a  word 
in  his  ear — 

"  Wait ;  we  want  to  talk." 

The  young  Baron's  prompt  return,  and  his  air  of  satisfac- 
tion, though  contrasting  with  the  gravity  his  face  assumed 
now  and  then,  had  vaguely  hinted  to  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne 
of  some  checks  the  lieutenant  might  have  received  in  his  cruise 
against  Gamard  and  Troubert.  He  manifested  no  surprise  on 
hearing  the  Baron  proclaim  the  secret  power  possessed  by  the 
vicar-general. 

"  I  knew  that,"  said  he. 

"Well,  then,"  exclaimed  the  Baroness,  "why  did  you  not 
warn  us  ?  " 

"Madame,"  he  hastily  replied,  "if  you  will  forget  that  I 
guessed  this  priest's  occult  influence,  I  will  forget  that  you 
know  it  as  well  as  I.  If  we  should  fail  to  keep  the  secret,  we 
might  be  taken  for  his  accomplices ;  we  should  be  feared  and 
hated.  Do  as  I  do.  Pretend  to  be  a  dupe ;  but  look  carefully 
where  you  set  your  feet.  I  said  quite  enough ;  you  did  not 
understand  me.     I  coulS  not  compromise  myself." 

"What  must  we  do  now?"  said  the  Baron. 

The  desertion  of  Birotteau  was  not  a  matter  of  question ;  it 
was  the  primary  condition,  and  so  understood  by  this  council 
of  three. 

"  To  effect  a  retreat  with  all  the  honors  of  war  has  always 
been  the  greatest  achievement  of  the  most  skillful  generals," 
said  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne.  "Yield  to  Troubert;  if  his 
hatred  is  less  than  his  vanity,  you  will  gain  an  ally ;  but  if 
you  yield  too  much,  he  will  trample  on  your  body,  for,  as 
Boileau  says,  '  Destruction  is  by  choice  the  spirit  of  the 
church.'  Make  as  though  you  were  quitting  the  service,  and 
you  will  escape  him,  Monsieur  le  Baron.  Dismiss  Birotteau, 
madame,  and  you  will  gain  Gamard  her  lawsuit.  When  you 
meet  the  Abbe  Troubert  at  the  archbishop's,  ask  him  if  he 
plays  whist  \  he  will  answer  '  Yes. '     Invite  him  to  play  a  rubber 


220  THE   CELIBATES. 

in  this  drawing-room,  where  he  longs  to  be  admitted ;  he  will 
certainly  come.  You  are  a  woman ;  try  to  enlist  this  priest  in 
your  interest.  When  the  Baron  is  a  ship's  captain,  his  uncle 
a  peer  of  France,  and  Troubert  a  bishop,  you  can  make  Birot- 
teau  a  canon  at  your  leisure.  Till  then  yield ;  but  yield  grace- 
fully, and  with  a  threat.  Your  family  can  give  Troubert  quite 
as  much  assistance  as  he  can  give  you;  you  will  meet  half-way 
to  admiration.  And  take  soundings  constantly  as  you  go, 
sailor!" 

"  Poor  Birotteau  !  "  said  the  Baroness. 

**  Oh  !  begin  at  once,"  said  the  old  man  as  he  took  leave. 
**  If  some  clever  Liberal  should  get  hold  of  that  vacuous 
brain,  he  would  get  you  into  trouble.  After  all,  the  law 
would  pronounce  in  his  favor,  and  Troubert  must  be  afraid 
of  the  verdict.  As  yet  he  may  forgive  you  for  having  begun 
the  action,  but  after  a  defeat  he  would  be  implacable.  I  have 
spoken." 

He  snapped  his  snuff-box  lid,  went  to  put  on  his  thick 
shoes,  and  departed. 

The  next  morning,  after  breakfast,  the  Baroness  remained 
alone  with  Birotteau,  and  said  to  him,  not  without  visible  em- 
barrassment— 

**  My  dear  Monsieur  Birotteau,  I  am  going  to  make  a  re- 
quest that  you  will  think  very  unjust  and  inconsistent ;  but 
both  for  your  sake  and  for  ours  you  must,  in  the  first  place, 
put  an  end  to  your  action  against  Mademoiselle  Gamard  by 
renouncing  your  claims,  and  also  quit  my  house." 

As  he  heard  these  words  the  poor  priest  turned  pale. 

"I  am  the  innocent  cause  of  your  misfortunes,"  she  went 
on  ;  "  and  I  know  that  but  for  my  nephew  you  would  never 
have  begun  the  proceedings  which  now  are  working  woe  for 
you  and  for  us.     Listen  to  me." 

And  she  briefly  set  forth  the  immense  scope  of  this  affair, 
explaining  the  seriousness  of  its  consequences.  Her  medita- 
tions during  the  night  had  enabled  her  to  form  an  idea  of 


THE  ABB  A  BIROTTEAU.  221 

what  the  Abbe  Troubert's  former  life  had  been.  Thus  she 
could  unerringly  point  out  to  Birotteau  the  web  in  which  he 
had  been  involved  by  this  skillfully-plotted  vengeance,  could 
show  him  the  superior  cleverness  and  power  of  the  enemy, 
revealing  his  hatred  and  explaining  its  causes ;  she  pictured 
him  as  crouching  for  twelve  years  to  Chapeloud,  and  now 
devouring  and  persecuting  Chapeloud  in  the  person  of  his 
friend. 

The  guileless  Birotteau  clasped  his  hands  as  if  to  pray,  and 
wept  with  grief  at  this  vision  of  human  wickedness  which  his 
innocent  soul  had  never  conceived  of.  Terrified,  as  though 
he  was  standing  on  the  verge  of  an  abyss,  he  listened  to  his 
benefactress  with  moist  and  staring  eyes,  but  without  express- 
ing a  single  idea.     She  said  in  conclusion — 

"  I  know  how  vile  it  is  to  desert  you ;  but,  my  dear  abbe, 
family  duties  must  supersede  those  of  friendship.  Bend 
before  this  storm,  as  I  must,  and  I  will  prove  my  gratitude. 
I  say  nothing  of  your  personal  concerns  ;  I  undertake  them  ; 
you  shall  be  released  from  money  difficulties  for  the  rest  of 
your  life.  By  the  intervention  of  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne, 
who  will  know  how  to  save  appearances,  I  will  see  that  you 
lack  nothing.  My  friend,  give  me  the  right  to  throw  you 
over.  I  shall  remain  your  friend  while  conforming  to  the  re- 
quirements of  the  world.     Decide." 

The  hapless  abbe,  quite  bewildered,  exclaimed — 

"  Ah  !  then  Chapeloud  was  right  when  he  said  that  if  Trou- 
bert  could  drag  him  out  of  his  grave  by  the  heels,  he  would 
do  it !     He  sleeps  in  Chapeloud's  bed  !  " 

"It  is  no  time  for  lamentations,"  said  Madame  de  Listo- 
mere.     "  We  have  no  time  to  spare.     Come " 

Birotteau  was  too  kind-hearted  not  to  submit  in  any  great 
crisis  to  the  impulsive  self-sacrifice  of  the  first  moment.  But, 
in  any  case,  his  life  already  was  but  one  long  martyrdom. 

He  answered  with  a  heart-broken  look  at  his  protectress, 
which  wrung  her  soul — 


222  THE  CELIBATES. 

"I  am  in  your  hands.  I  am  no  more  than  a  straw  in  the 
street !  " 

The  local  word  he  used,  bourrier,  is  peculiar  to  Touraine, 
and  its  only  literal  rendering  is  a  straw.  But  there  are  pretty 
little  straws,  yellow,  shiny,  and  smart,  the  delight  of  chil- 
dren ;  while  a  bourrier  is  a  dirty,  colorless,  miry  straw,  left  in 
the  gutter,  driven  by  the  wind,  crushed  by  the  foot  of  every 
passer-by. 

**  But,  madame,"  he  went  on,  "  I  should  not  wish  to  leave 
the  portrait  of  Chapeloud  for  the  Abbe  Troubert.  It  was 
done  for  me,  and  belongs  to  me ;  get  that  back  for  me,  and 
I  will  give  up  everything  else." 

"Well,"  said  Madame  de  Listomere,  "  I  will  go  to  Made- 
moiselle Gamard."  She  spoke  in  a  tone  which  showed  what 
extraordinary  effort  the  Baroness  de  Listomere  was  making  in 
stooping  to  flatter  the  old  maid's  conceit.  "And  I  will  try 
to  settle  everything,"  she  went  on.  "  I  hardly  dare  hope  it. 
Go  and  see  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne.  Get  him  to  draw  up 
your  act  of  renunciation  in  due  form,  and  bring  it  to  me 
signed  and  witnessed.  With  the  help  of  the  archbishop,  I 
may  perhaps  get  the  thing  settled." 

Birotteau  went  away  overpowered.  Troubert  had  assumed 
in  his  eyes  the  proportions  of  an  Egyptian  pyramid.  The 
man's  hands  were  in  Paris,  and  his  elbows  in  the  Close  of 
Saint-Gatien. 

"  He,"  said  he  to  himself,  "  to  hinder  Monsieur le  Marquis 
de  Listomere  being  made  a  peer  of  France  !  And  then, 
*  With  the  help  of  the  archbishop,  perhaps  get  the  thing 
settled  ! '  " 

In  comparison  with  such  high  interests,  Birotteau  felt  him- 
self a  grasshopper  ;  he  was  honest  to  himself. 

The  news  of  Birotteau's  removal  was  all  the  more  astound- 
ing because  the  reason  was  undiscoverable.  Madame  de 
Listomere  gave  out  that  as  her  nephew  wished  to  marry  and 
retire  from  the  service,  she  needed  the  abb6's  room  to  add  to 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAU.  22S 

her  own.  No  one  as  yet  had  heard  that  Birotteau  had  with- 
drawn the  action.  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne's  instructions 
were  thus  judiciously  carried  out. 

These  two  pieces  of  news,  when  they  should  reach  the  ears 
of  the  vicar-general,  must  certainly  flatter  his  vanity,  by 
showing  him  that,  though  the  Listomere  family  would  not 
capitulate,  it  would  at  least  remain  neutral,  tacitly  recognizing 
the  secret  power  of  the  church  council;  and  was  not  recogni- 
tion submission  ?  Still,  the  action  remained  sub  judice.  Was 
not  this  to  yield  and  to  threaten? 

Thus  the  Listomdres  had  assumed  an  attitude  precisely 
similar  to  that  of  the  Abbe  Troubert  in  this  contest ;  they 
stood  aside  and  could  direct  their  forces  as  circumstances 
might  dictate. 

But  a  serious  event  now  occurred,  and  added  to  their  diffi- 
culties, hindering  the  success  of  the  means  by  which  Monsieur 
de  Bourbonne  and  the  Listomeres  hoped  to  mollify  the 
Garaard  and  Troubert  faction.  On  the  previous  day  Made- 
moiselle Gamard  had  taken  a  chill  on  coming  out  of  the  ca- 
thedral, had  gone  to  bed,  and  was  reported  to  be  seriously  ill. 
The  whole  town  rang  with  lamentations,  excited  by  spurious 
commiseration.  *'  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  highly  strung  sen- 
sibilities had  succumbed  to  the  scandal  of  this  lawsuit. 
Though  she  was  undoubtedly  in  the  right,  she  was  dying  of 
grief.  Birotteau  had  killed  his  benefactress."  This  was  the 
sum  and  substance  of  the  phrases  fired  off  through  the  capil- 
lary ducts  of  the  great  feminine  synod,  and  readily  repeated 
by  the  town  of  Tours. 

Madame  de  Listomdre  suffered  the  humiliation  of  calling 
on  the  old  woman  without  gaining  anything  by  her  visit. 
She  very  politely  requested  to  be  allowed  to  speak  to  the 
vicar-general.  Flattered,  perhaps,  at  receiving  a  woman  who 
had  slighted  him,  in  Chapeloud's  library,  by  the  fireplace 
over  which  the  two  famous  pictures  in  dispute  were  hanging, 


224  THE   CELIBATES. 

Troubert  kept  the  Baroness  waiting  a  minute,  then  he  con- 
sented to  see  her. 

No  courtier,  no  diplomat,  ever  threw  into  the  discussion 
of  private  interests  or  national  negotiations  greater  skill, 
dissimulation,  and  depth  of  purpose  than  the  Baroness  and 
the  abbe  displayed  when  they  found  themselves  face  to  face. 

Old  Bourbonne,  like  the  sponsor,  in  the  middle  ages,  who 
armed  the  champion,  and  fortified  his  courage  by  good 
counsel  as  he  entered  the  lists,  had  instructed  the  Baroness — 

"  Do  not  forget  your  part ;  you  are  a  peacemaker,  and  not 
an  interested  party.  Troubert  likewise  is  a  mediator.  Weigh 
your  words.  Study  the  tones  of  the  vicar-general's  voice. 
If  he  strokes  his  chin,  you  have  won  him." 

Some  caricaturists  have  amused  themselves  by  representing 
the  contrast  that  so  frequently  exists  between  what  we  say  and 
what  we  think.  In  this  place,  to  represent  fully  the  interesting 
points  of  the  duel  of  words  that  took  place  between  the  priest 
and  the  fine  lady,  it  is  necessary  to  disclose  the  thoughts  they 
each  kept  concealed  under  apparently  trivial  speech. 

Madame  de  Listomdre  began  by  expressing  the  regret  she 
felt  about  this  lawsuit  of  Birotteau's,  and  she  went  on  to  speak 
of  her  desire  of  seeing  the  affair  settled  to  the  satisfaction  of 
both  parties. 

"  The  mischief  is  done,  madame,"  said  the  abbe.  "The 
admirable  Mademoiselle  Gamard  is  dying."  ("  /  care  no 
more  for  that  stupid  creature  than  for  Prester  John,''  thought 
he,  "  but  I  sJiould  like  to  lay  her  death  at  your  door,  and  bur- 
then your  conscience,  if  you  are  silly  enough  to  care.'') 

"  On  hearing  of  her  illness,"  said  the  Baroness,  "I  desired 
the  abb6  to  sign  a  withdrawal,  which  I  have  brought  to  that 
saintly  person."  {"/see  through  you,"  thought  she,  "  you  old 
rascal;  but  we  are  no  longer  at  the  mercy  of  your  vagaries. 
As  for  you,  if  you  accept  the  deed,  you  will  have  put  your  foot 
in  it ;  it  will  be  a  confession  of  complicity.") 

There  was  a  brief  silence. 


The  mischief  is  done,  Madame,"  sajd  the  abbe. 


THE  ABB^  BIROTTEAU:  225 

"  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  temporal  affairs  are  no  concern 
of  mine,"  said  the  priest  at  length,  closing  the  deep  lids  over 
his  eagle  eyes  to  conceal  his  excitement.  {.^'Ah,  ha,  you  will 
not  catch  me  tripping  /  But  God  be  praised,  those  cursed 
lawyers  will  not  fight  out  a  case  that  might  bespatter  me  !  But 
what  on  earth  can  the  Listomeres  want  that  they  are  so  hum- 
ble?'') 

"  Monsieur,"  replied  the  Baroness,  "  the  concerns  of  Mon- 
sieur I'Abbe  Birotteau  interest  me  no  more  than  those  of 
Mademoiselle  Gamard  do  you.  But,  unluckily,  religion 
might  suffer  from  their  quarrels,  and  in  you  I  see  but  a  medi- 
ator,   while   I  myself  come  forward  as   a  peacemaker " 

("  JVe  can  neither  of  us  throw  dust  in  the  other' s  eyes,  Mon- 
sieur Troubert,"  thought  she.  '^  Do  you  appreciate  the  epi- 
gram in  that  reply  ?") 

"  Religion!  "  said  the  vicar-general.  "  Madame,  religion 
stands  too  high  for  man  to  touch  it."  {^^ Religion  means 
me,'*  thought  he.)  "  God  will  judge  us  unerringly,  mad- 
ame,"  he  coolly  added,  "and  I  can  recognize  no  other 
tribunal." 

"Well,  then,  monsieur,"  replied  she,  "let  us  try  to  make 
man's  judgments  agree  with  God's."     ("Kfj,  religion  means 

yaun 

The  Abbe  Troubert  changed  his  tone. 

"Has  not  monsieur  your  nephew  just  been  to  Paris?" 
("  You  heard  of  me  there,  I  fancy,"  thought  he;  "/  can 
crush  you — you  who  scorned  me  !  You  have  come  to  sur- 
render.") 

"Yes,  monsieur,  thank  you  for  taking  so  much  interest  in 
him.  He  is  returning  to  Paris  to-night,  ordered  there  by  the 
minister,  who  is  kindness  itself  to  us,  and  does  not  wish  him 
to  retire  from  the  service."  {^^^ No,  Jesuit,  you  will  not  crush 
us,"  thought  she;  ^^we  understand  your  little  game")  A 
pause.  "  I  have  not  approved  of  his  conduct  in  this  affair," 
she  went  on,  "  but  a  sailor  may  be  forgiven  for  not  under- 
15 


226  THE   CELIBATES. 

standing  the  law."  (J*  Come,  let  us  be  allies,''  thought  she; 
**  we  shall  gain  nothing  by  squabbling.") 

A  faint  smile  dawned,  and  was  lost,  in  the  furrows  of  the 
abb6's  face. 

"  He  has  done  us  some  service  by  informing  us  of  the 
value  of  those  two  pictures,"  said  he,  looking  at  them  ; 
"they  will  be  a  worthy  ornament  to  the  lady  chapel." 
("  You  fired  an  epigram  at  me,  madame,''  thought  he ;  "  there 
are  two  for  you  and  we  are  quits'') 

"  If  you  present  them  to  Saint-Gatien,  I  would  beg  you  to 
allow  me  to  offer  to  the  church  two  frames  worthy  of  the  place 
and  of  the  gift."  {^^^  I  should  like  to  make  you  confess  that  you 
coveted  Birotteau' s property,'^  thought  she.) 

"They  do  not  belong  to  me,"  said  the  priest,  well  on  his 
guard. 

"Well,  here  is  the  deed  that  puts  an  end  to  all  dispute," 
said  Madame  de  Listomdre,  "  and  restores  them  to  Mademoi- 
selle Gamard."  She  laid  the  document  on  the  table.  ("Kw 
see,  monsieur,  how  much  I  trust  you,"  thought  she.)  "It  is 
worthy  of  you,  monsieur,  worthy  of  your  fine  character,  to 
reconcile  two  Christians,  though  I  have  ceased  to  take  much 
interest  in  Monsieur  Birotteau." 

"  But  he  is  your  pensioner,"  said  he,  interrupting  her. 

"No,  monsieur,  he  is  no  longer  under  my  roof."  C'My 
brother-in-law' s  peerage  and  my  nephew' s  promotion  are  leading 
me  into  very  mean  actions,"  thought  she.) 

The  abb6  remained  unmoved,  but  his  calm  aspect  was  a 
symptom  of  violent  agitation.  Only  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne 
had  divined  the  secret  of  that  superficial  calm.  The  priest 
was  triumphant. 

"Why,  then,  did  you  take  charge  of  his  act  of  renuncia- 
tion?" he  asked,  moved  by  a  feeling  similar  to  that  which 
makes  a  woman  fish  for  compliments. 

"  I  could  not  help  feeling  some  pity  for  him.  Birotteau, 
whose  feeble  character  must  be  well  known  to  you,  entreated 


THE  ABB&  BIROTTEAU.  227 

me  to  see  Mademoiselle  Gamard  in  order  to  obtain  from  her, 
as  the  price  of  the  surrender  of" — the  abbe  frowned — "of 
his  rights,  as  recognized  by  many  distinguished  lawyers,  the 
portrait" — the  priest  looked  hard  at  Madame  de  Listomere — 
"  of  Chapeloud,"  she  said.     "  I  leave  it  to  you  to  judge  of 

his  claim  to  it ' '     (*  *  You  would  lose  if  you  fought  the  case, ' ' 

thought  she.) 

The  tone  in  which  the  Baroness  uttered  the  words  "dis- 
tinguished lawyers ' '  showed  the  priest  that  she  knew  the 
enemy's  strength  and  weakness.  Madame  de  Listomere  dis- 
played so  much  skill  to  this  experienced  connoisseur  that  at 
the  end  of  this  conversation,  which  was  carried  on  for  some 
time  in  the  same  key,  he  went  down  to  see  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  to  bring  her  answer  as  to  the  proposed  bargain. 

Troubert  soon  returned. 

"  Madame,"  said  he,  "  I  can  but  repeat  the  poor  dying 
woman's  words,  '  Monsieur  I'Abbe  Chapeloud  showed  me  too 
much  kindness,'  said  she,  'for  me  to  part  from  his  portrait.' 
As  for  myself,  if  it  were  mine,  I  would  not  give  it  up  to  any 
one.  I  was  too  faithfully  attached  to  my  poor  dead  friend 
not  to  feel  that  I  have  a  right  to  claim  his  likeness  against 
anybody  in  the  world." 

"Well,  monsieur,  do  not  let  us  fall  out  over  a  bad  picture." 
(^^  I  care  for  it  no  more  than  you  do,^^  thought  she.)  "  Keep 
it ;  we  will  have  it  copied.  I  am  proud  to  have  brought  this 
sad  and  deplorable  lawsuit  to  an  end,  and  I  have  personally 
gained  the  pleasure  of  making  your  acquaintance.  I  have 
heard  that  you  are  a  fine  whist  player.  You  will  forgive  a 
woman  for  being  curious,"  she  added  with  a  smile.  "  If  you 
will  come  and  play  occasionally  at  my  house,  you  cannot 
doubt  that  you  will  be  heartily  welcomed." 

The  Abb6  Troubert  stroked  his  chin.  ("ZT^r  is  caught ; 
Bourbonne  was  right, ^^  thought  she,  ^^  he  has  his  share  of 
vanity.^') 

In  fact,  the  vicar-general  was  at  this  moment  enjoying  the 


228  THE  CELIBATES: 

delicious  sensation  which  Mirabeau  found  irresistible  when, 
in  the  day  of  his  power,  he  saw  the  gates  of  some  mansion 
which  formerly  had  been  closed  against  him  opened  to  admit 
his  carriage. 

"Madame,"  replied  he,  "my  occupations  are  too  impor- 
tant to  allow  of  my  going  into  society;  but  for  you  what 
would  not  a  man  do?"  (**//  is  all  over  with  the  old  girl; 
I  will  make  up  to  the  Listomeres,  and  do  them  a  good  turn  if 
they  do  me  one,''  thought  he.  "//  is  better  to  have  them  for 
friends  than  for  enemies^^ 

Madame  de  Listomere  went  home,  hoping  that  the  arch- 
bishop would  complete  a  pacification  so  happily  begun.  But 
Birotteau  was  to  gain  nothing  even  by  his  renunciation. 
Madame  de  Listomere  heard  next  day  that  Mademoiselle 
Gamard  was  dead.  The  old  maid's  will  being  opened,  no 
one  was  surprised  to  learn  that  she  had  constituted  the  Abbe 
Troubert  her  universal  legatee.  Her  property  was  estimated 
at  a  hundred  thousand  crowns.  The  vicar-general  sent  two 
invitations  to  the  service  and  burial  to  Madame  de  Listomdre's 
house — one  for  herself  and  the  other  for  her  nephew. 

**  We  must  go,"  said  she. 

"  That  is  just  what  it  means  !  "  exclaimed  Monsieur  de 
Bourbonne.  "  It  is  a  test  by  which  Monseigneur  Troubert 
meant  to  try  you.  Baron,  you  must  go  all  the  way  to  the 
grave,"  he  added  to  the  navy  lieutenant,  who,  for  his  sins, 
had  not  yet  left  Tours. 

The  service  was  held,  and  was  marked  by  ecclesiastical 
magnificence.  One  person  only  shed  tears.  That  was  Birot- 
teau, who,  alone  in  a  side  chapel  where  he  was  not  seen, 
believed  himself  guilty  of  this  death,  and  prayed  fervently  for 
the  soul  of  the  departed,  bitterly  bewailing  himself  because 
he  had  not  obtained  her  forgiveness  for  having  wronged  her. 

The  Abb6  Troubert  followed  his  friend's  body  to  the  grave 
in  which  she  was  to  be  laid.  Standing  on  its  brink,  he  de- 
livered an  address,  and,  thanks  to  his  eloquence,  gave  monu- 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAU.  229 

mental  dignity  to  his  picture  of  the  narrow  life  led  by  the 
testatrix.  The  bystanders  particularly  noted  these  words  in 
the  peroration : 

"  This  life,  full  of  days  devoted  to  God  and  to  religion — 
this  life,  adorned  by  so  many  beautiful  actions  performed  in 
silence,  so  many  modest  and  unrecognized  virtues,  was 
blighted  by  a  sorrow  which  we  would  call  unmerited  if,  here, 
on  the  verge  of  eternity,  we  could  forget  that  all  our  afflic- 
tions are  sent  us  by  God.  This  holy  woman's  many  friends, 
knowing  how  noble  was  her  guileless  soul,  foresaw  that  she 
could  endure  anything  excepting  only  such  detraction  as 
would  affect  her  whole  existence.  And  so  perhaps  Providence 
has  taken  her  to  rest  in  God  only  to  rescue  her  from  our  petty 
griefs.  Happy  are  they  who  here  on  earth  can  live  at  peace 
with  themselves,  as  Sophie  now  reposes  in  the  realms  of  the 
blest,  in  her  robe  of  innocence  !  " 

"And  when  he  had  ended  this  grandiloquent  discourse," 
said  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne,  who  reported  all  the  details  of 
the  funeral  to  Madame  de  Listomere  that  evening  when,  the 
rubbers  ended  and  the  doors  closed,  they  were  left  alone  with 
the  Baron,  "  imagine,  if  you  can,  that  Louis  XI.  in  a  priest's 
gown  giving  the  holy-water  sprinkler  a  final  flourish  in  this 
style" — and  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne  took  up  the  tongs  and 
imitated  the  Abbe  Troubert's  movement  so  exactly  that  the 
Baron  and  his  aunt  could  not  help  smiling.  "  In  this  alone," 
added  the  old  man,  "did  he  betray  himself.  Till  then  his 
reserve  had  been  perfect ;  but  now,  when  he  had  packed  away 
for  ever  the  old  maid  he  so  utterly  despised  and  hated,  almost 
as  much  perhaps  as  he  had  detested  Chapeloud,  he,  no  doubt, 
found  it  impossible  to  hinder  his  satisfaction  from  betraying 
itself  in  a  gesture." 

Next  morning  Mademoiselle  Salomon  came  to  breakfast 
with  Madame  de  Listomere,  and  as  soon  as  she  came  in  she 
said  quite  sadly — - 


230  THE   CELIBATES. 

"  Our  poor  Abbe  Birotteau  has  just  been  dealt  a  dreadful 
blow  which  reveals  the  most  elaborately  studied  hatred.  He 
is  made  cure  of  Saint-Symphorien." 

Saint-Symphorien  is  a  suburb  of  Tours  lying  beyond  the 
bridge.  This  bridge,  one  of  the  finest  works  of  French 
architecture,  is  nearly  two  thousand  feet  long,  and  the  open 
squares  at  each  end  are  exactly  alike. 

"Do  you  understand?"  she  added,  after  a  pause,  amazed 
at  the  coolness  with  which  Madame  de  Listomere  heard  this 
news.  "The  Abbe  Birotteau  will  there  be  a  hundred  leagues 
from  Tours,  from  his  friends,  from  everything.  Is  it  not 
exile,  and  all  the  more  terrible  because  he  will  be  torn  from 
the  town  that  his  eyes  will  behold  every  day,  while  he  can 
hardly  ever  come  to  it?  He  who,  since  his  troubles,  has 
hardly  been  able  to  walk,  will  be  obliged  to  come  a  league  to 
see  us.  At  the  present  moment  the  poor  man  is  in  bed  with 
a  feverish  attack.  The  priest's  residence  at  Saint-Symphorien 
is  cold  and  damp,  and  the  parish  is  too  poor  to  restore  it. 
The  poor  old  man  will  be  buried  alive  in  a  real  tomb.  What 
a  villainous  plot !  " 

It  will  now,  perhaps,  suffice  in  conclusion  of  this  story  to 
report  briefly  a  few  subsequent  events,  and  to  sketch  a  last 
picture. 

Five  months  later  the  vicar-general  was  a  bishop ;  Madame 
de  Listomere  was  dead,  leaving  fifteen  hundred  francs  a  year 
to  the  Abbe  Birotteau.  On  the  day  when  the  Baroness'  will 
was  read,  Monseigneur  Hyacinthe,  bishop  of  Troyes,  was 
about  to  leave  Tours  and  take  up  his  residence  in  his  diocese ; 
but  he  postponed  his  departure.  Furious  at  having  been  de- 
ceived by  a  woman  to  whom  he  had  offered  a  hand,  while 
she  was  secretly  holding  out  hers  to  the  man  whom  he  chose 
to  regard  as  an  enemy,  Troubert  again  threatened  to  mar 
the  Baron's  career  and  hinder  the  Marquis  de  Listomere  from 
receiving  his  peerage.     In  full  council,  at  the  archbishop's 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAU.  231 

palace,  he  uttered  one  of  those  priestly  speeches,  big  with 
revenge,  though  smooth  with  honeyed  mildness. 

The  ambitious  lieutenant  came  to  see  this  ruthless  prelate, 
who  dictated  hard  terms  no  doubt,  for  the  Baron's  conduct 
showed  absolute  subservience  to  the  terrible  Jesuit's  will. 

The  new  bishop,  by  a  deed  of  gift,  bestowed  Mademoiselle 
Gamard's  house  on  the  cathedral  chapter ;  he  gave  Chape- 
loud's  bookcase  and  books  to  the  little  seminary ;  he  dedi- 
cated the  two  disputed  pictures  to  the  lady  chapel ;  but  he 
kept  the  portrait  of  Chapeloud.  No  one  could  understand 
this  almost  complete  surrender  of  all  Mademoiselle  Gamard's 
property.  Monsieur  de  Bourbonne  imagined  that  he  secretly 
kept  all  the  actual  money  to  enable  him  to  maintain  his  rank 
in  Paris,  if  he  should  be  called  to  sit  on  the  bench  of  bishops 
in  the  upper  chamber. 

At  last,  on  the  very  day  before  Monseigneur  Troubert  left 
Tours,  the  "  old  fox  "  detected  the  last  plot  which  these  gifts 
had  covered,  a  coup  de  grace  dealt  by  the  most  relentless 
vengeance  to  the  most  helpless  of  victims.  The  Baron  de 
Listomdre  disputed  Mad^.me  de  Listomere's  bequest  to  Birot- 
teau  on  the  ground  of  undue  influence  !  Within  a  few  days 
of  the  first  steps  being  taken  in  this  action,  the  Baron  was 
appointed  to  a  ship  with  the  rank  of  captain ;  the  cure  of 
Saint-Symphorien  was,  by  an  act  of  discipline,  placed  under 
an  interdict.  His  ecclesiastical  superiors  condemned  him  by 
anticipation  ;  so  the  assassin  of  the  late  Sophie  Gamard  was 
a  rogue  as  well  !  Now,  if  Monseigneur  Troubert  had  kept 
the  old  maid's  property,  he  could  hardly  have  secured  Birot- 
teau's  disgrace. 

At  the  moment,  when  Monseigneur  Hyacinthe,  bishop  of 
Troyes,  was  passing  in  a  post-chaise,  along  the  quay  of  Saint- 
Symphorien,  on  his  way  to  Paris,  poor  Birotteau  had  just  been 
brought  out  in  an  armchair  to  sit  in  the  sun  on  a  terrace. 
The  unhappy  priest,  stricken  by  his  archbishop,  was  pale  and 
haggard.     Grief,   stamped  on  every  feature,  had  completely 


232  THE   CELIBATES. 

altered  the  face,  which  of  old  had  been  so  blandly  cheerful. 
Ill-health  had  cast  a  dimness  that  simulated  thought  over  his 
eyes,  which  had  been  bright  once  with  the  pleasures  of  good 
living,  and  devoid  of  any  weight  of  ideas.  This  was  but  the 
skeleton  of  that  Birotteau  who,  only  a  year  ago,  vacuous  but 
happy,  had  waddled  across  the  Close.  The  bishop  shot  a  glance 
of  contempt  and  pity  at  his  victim ;  then  he  vouchsafed  to 
forget  him,  and  passed  on. 

In  other  times  Troubert  would  certainly  have  been  a  Hilde- 
brand  or  an  Alexander  VI.  Nowadays  the  church  is  no  longer 
a  political  force,  and  does  not  absorb  all  the  powers  of  isolated 
men.  Hence  celibacy  has  this  crying  evil,  that  by  concentra- 
ting the  powers  of  a  man  on  one  single  passion,  namely,  egoism, 
it  makes  the  unwedded  soul  mischievous  or  useless. 

We  live  in  a  time  when  the  fault  of  most  governments  is 
that  they  make  man  for  society  rather  than  society  for  man. 
A  perpetual  struggle  is  going  on  between  the  individual  and 
the  system  that  tries  to  turn  him  to  account,  while  he  tries  to 
turn  it  to  account  for  his  own  advantage ;  formerly,  man  hav- 
ing really  more  liberty,  showed  greater  generosity  for  the 
public  weal.  The  circle  in  which  men  move  has  insensibly 
widened;  the  soul  that  can  apprehend  it  synthetically  will 
never  be  anything  but  a  grand  exception,  since,  constantly, 
in  moral  as  in  physical  force,  what  is  gained  in  extent  is  lost 
in  intensity.     Society  cannot  be  based  on  exceptions. 

Originally,  man  was  simply  and  solely  a  father ;  his  heart 
beat  warmly,  concentrated  within  the  radius  of  the  family. 
Later  on  he  lived  for  the  clan  or  for  a  small  republic ;  hence 
the  grand  historical  heroism  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Next,  he 
became  the  member  of  a  caste,  or  of  a  religion,  and  often  was 
truly  sublime  in  his  devotion  to  its  greatness;  but  then  the 
field  of  his  interests  was  increased  by  the  addition  of  every 
intellectual  realm.  In  these  days  his  life  is  bound  up  with 
that  of  a  vast  fatherland ;  ere  long  his  family  will  be  the  whole 
human  race. 


THE  ABBE  BIROTTEAU,  233 

Will  not  this  moral  cosmopolitanism,  the  thing  the  Roman 
church  hopes  for,  be  a  sublime  mistake  ?  It  is  so  natural  to 
believe  in  that  noble  chimera — the  brotherhood  of  men.  But, 
alas !  the  human  machine  has  not  such  godlike  proportions. 
The  souls  that  are  vast  enough  to  wed  a  sentiment  that  is  the 
prerogative  of  a  great  man  will  never  be  those  of  plain  citizens, 
of  fathers  of  families. 

Certain  physiologists  opine  that  if  the  brain  expands,  the 
heart  must  necessarily  shrink.  That  is  a  mistake.  Is  not 
what  looks  like  egoism  in  the  men  who  bear  in  their  breast  a 
science,  a  nation,  or  its  laws,  the  noblest  of  passions  ?  Is  it 
not,  in  a  way,  a  motherhood  of  the  people  ?  To  bring  forth 
new  races  or  new  ideas,  must  they  not  combine  in  their 
powerful  brain  the  breast  of  the  mother  with  the  force  of 
God?  The  history  of  an  Innocent  III,,  of  a  Peter  the  Great, 
of  all  who  have  guided  an  epoch  or  a  nation,  would  at  need 
prove  to  be,  in  the  highest  order  of  minds,  the  immense  idea 
represented  by  Troubert  in  the  depths  of  the  Close  of  Saint- 
Gat  ien. 

Saint-Firmin,  April,  1832. 


COLONEL  CHABERT. 

Ta  Madame  la  Comtesse  Ida  de  Bocarmt  n6e 
du  Chasteler. 

"  Hullo  !     There  is  that  old  box-coat  again  !  " 

This  exclamation  was  made  by  a  lawyer's  clerk  of  the  class 
called  in  French  offices  a  gutter-jumper — a  messenger  in  fact 
— who  at  this  moment  was  eating  a  piece  of  dry  bread  with  a 
hearty  appetite.  He  pulled  off  a  morsel  of  crumb  to  make 
into  a  bullet,  and  fired  it  gleefully  through  the  open  pane  of 
the  window  against  which  he  was  leaning.  The  pellet,  well 
aimed,  rebounded  almost  as  high  as  the  window,  after  hitting 
the  hat  of  a  stranger  who  was  crossing  the  courtyard  of  a 
house  in  the  Rue  Vivienne,  where  dwelt  Maitre  Derville, 
attorney-at-law. 

"Come,  Simonnin,  don't  plj.y  tricks  on  people,  or  I  will 
turn  you  out  of  doors.  However  poor  a  client  may  be,  he  is 
still  a  man,  hang  it  all !  "  said  the  head  clerk,  pausing  in  the 
addition  of  a  bill  of  costs. 

The  lawyer's  messenger  is  commonly,  as  was  Simonnin,  a 
lad  of  thirteen  or  fourteen,  who,  in  every  office,  is  under  the 
special  jurisdiction  of  the  managing  clerk,  whose  errands  and 
billets-doux  keep  him  employed  on  his  way  to  carry  writs  to 
the  bailiffs  and  petitions  to  the  courts.  He  is  akin  to  the 
street  boy  in  his  habits  and  to  the  pettifogger  by  fate.  The 
boy  is  almost  always  ruthless,  unbroken,  unmanageable,  a 
ribald  rhymester,  impudent,  greedy,  and  idle.  And  yet 
almost  all  these  clerklings  have  an  old  mother  lodging  on 
some  fifth  floor  with  whom  they  share  their  pittance  of  thirty 
or  forty  francs  a  month. 

"If  he  is  a  man,  why  do  you  call  him  old  box-coat?" 

(235) 


236  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

asked  Simonnin,  with  the  air  of  a  schoolboy  who  has  caught 
out  his  master. 

And  he  went  on  eating  his  bread  and  cheese,  leaning  his 
shoulder  against  the  window  jamb ;  for  he  rested  standing 
like  a  cab-horse,  one  of  his  legs  raised  and  propped  against 
the  other,  on  the  toe  of  his  shoe. 

"What  trick  can  we  play  that  chap?"  said  the  third 
clerk,  whose  name  was  Godeschal,  in  a  low  voice,  pausing  in 
the  middle  of  a  discourse  he  was  extemporizing  in  an  appeal 
engrossed  by  the  fourth  clerk,  of  which  copies  were  being 
made  by  two  neophytes  from  the  provinces. 

Then  he  went  on  improvising : 

**  But,  in  his  noble  and  beneficent  wisdom,  his  majesty,  Louis 
the  Eighteenth — (write  it  at  full  length,  heh  !  Desroches  the 
learned — you,  as  you  engross  it) — when  he  resumed  the  reins 
of  government,  understood — (what  did  that  old  nincompoop 
ever  understand  ?) — the  high  mission  to  which  he  had  been 
called  by  Divine  Providence  / — (a  note  of  exclamation  and  six 
stops.  They  are  pious  enough  at  the  courts  to  let  us  put  six) 
— and  his  first  thought,  as  is  proved  by  the  date  of  the  order 
hereinafter  designated,  was  to  repair  the  misfortunes  caused  by 
the  terrible  and  sad  disasters  of  the  revolutionary  times,  by  restor- 
ing to  his  numerous  and  faithful  adherents — ('numerous'  is 
flattering,  and  ought  to  please  the  bench) — all  their  unsold 
estates,  whether  within  our  realm  or  in  conquered  or  acquired  ter- 
ritory, or  in  the  endowments  of  public  institutions,  for  we  are, 
and  proclaim  ourselves  competent  to  declare,  that  this  is  the  spirit 
and  meaning  of  the  famous,  truly  loyal  order  given  in — Stop," 
said  Godeschal  to  the  three  copying  clerks,  "that  rascally 
sentence  brings  me  to  the  end  of  my  page.  Well,"  he  went 
on,  wetting  the  back  fold  of  the  sheet  with  his  tongue,  so  as 
to  be  able  to  fold  back  the  page  of  thick  stamped  paper, 
**  well,  if  you  want  to  play  him  a  trick,  tell  him  that  the 
master  can  only  see  his  clients  between  two  and  three  in  the 
morning ;  we  shall  see  if  he  comes,  the  old  ruffian  !  " 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  TSfl 

And  Godeschal  took  up  the  sentence  he  was  dictating — 
' '  given  in — Are  you  ready  ?  ' ' 

"  Yes,"  cried  the  three  writers. 

It  all  went  on  together,  the  appeal,  the  gossip,  and  the 
conspiracy. 

'*  Given  in — Here,  Daddy  Boucard,  what  is  the  date  of 
the  order  ?  We  must  dot  our  /'s  and  cross  our  /'s,  by  Jingo  ! 
It  helps  to  fill  the  pages." 

"By  Jingo  !  "  repeated  one  of  the  copying  clerks  before 
Boucard,  the  head  clerk,  could  reply. 

"What!  have  you  written  by  Jingo  ?^^  cried  Godeschal, 
looking  at  one  of  the  novices,  with  an  expression  at  once 
stern  and  humorous. 

"Why,  yes,"  said  Desroches,  the  fourth  clerk,  leaning 
across  his  neighbor's  copy,  "he  has  written  ^We  must 
dot  our  i'j  and  cross  our  t'j,  by  Gingo,^  and  spells  it 
G-i-n-g-o/'' 

All  the  clerks  shouted  with  laughter. 

"  Why  !  Monsieur  Hure,  you  take  *  By  Jingo '  for  a  law 
term,  and  you  say  you  come  from  Mortagne  !  "  exclaimed 
Simonnin. 

"Scratch  it  cleanly  out,"  said  the  head  clerk.  "If  the 
judge,  whose  business  it  is  to  tax  the  bill,  were  to  see  such 
things,  he  would  say  you  were  laughing  at  the  whole  boiling. 
You  would  hear  of  it  from  the  chief !  Come,  no  more  of 
this  nonsense.  Monsieur  Hure !  A  Norman  ought  not  to 
write  out  an  appeal  without  thought.  It  is  the  '  Shoulder 
arms  ! '  of  the  law." 

"Given  in — /«/"  asked  Godeschal.  "Tell  me  when, 
Boucard." 

"  June,  1 814,"  replied  the  head  clerk,  without  looking  up 
from  his  work. 

A  knock  at  the  office  door  interrupted  the  circumlocutions 
of  the  prolix  document.  Five  clerks  with  rows  of  hungry 
teeth,  bright,  mocking  eyes,  and  curly  heads,  lifted  their 


238  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

noses  towards  the  door,  after  crying  all  together  in  a  singing 
tone,  "  Come  in  !  " 

Boucard  kept  his  face  buried  in  a  pile  of  papers — brouiilles 
(odds  and  ends)  in  French  law  jargon — and  went  on  drawing 
out  the  bill  of  costs  on  which  he  was  busy. 

The  office  was  a  large  room  furnished  with  the  traditional 
stool  which  is  to  be  seen  in  all  these  dens  of  law-quibbling. 
The  stovepipe  crossed  the  room  diagonally  to  the  chimney  of 
a  bricked-up  fireplace ;  on  the  marble  chimney-piece  were 
several  chunks  of  bread,  triangles  of  Brie  cheese,  pork  cutlets, 
glasses,  bottles,  and  the  head-clerk's  cup  of  chocolate.  The 
smell  of  these  dainties  blended  so  completely  with  that  of 
the  immoderately  overheated  stove  and  the  odor  peculiar  to 
offices  and  old  papers,  that  the  trail  of  a  fox  would  not  have 
been  perceptible.  The  floor  was  covered  with  mud  and  snow, 
brought  in  by  the  clerks.  Near  the  window  stood  the  desk 
with  a  revolving  lid,  where  the  head  clerk  worked,  and  against 
the  back  of  it  was  the  second  clerk's  table.  The  second  clerk 
was  at  this  moment  in  court.  It  was  between  eight  and  nine 
in  the  morning. 

The  only  decoration  of  the  office  consisted  in  huge  yellow 
posters,  announcing  seizures  of  real  estate,  sales,  settlements 
under  trust,  final  or  interim  judgments — all  the  glory  of  a 
lawyer's  office.  Behind  the  head  clerk  was  an  enormous  stack 
of  pigeon-holes  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  the  room,  of 
which  each  division  was  crammed  with  bundles  of  papers 
with  an  infinite  number  of  tickets  hanging  from  them  at  the 
ends  of  red  tape,  which  give  a  peculiar  physiognomy  to  law- 
papers.  The  lower  rows  were  filled  with  cardboard  boxes, 
yellow  with  use,  on  which  might  be  read  the  names  of  the 
more  important  clients  whose  cases  were  juicily  stewing  at 
this  present  time.  The  dirty  window-panes  admitted  but 
little  daylight.  Indeed,  there  are  very  few  offices  in  Paris 
where  it  is  possible  to  write  without  lamplight  before  ten  in 
the  morning  in  the  month  of  February,  for  they  are  all  left 


COLONEL   C HA  BERT.  239 

to  very  natural  neglect ;  every  one  comes  and  no  one  stays ; 
no  one  has  any  personal  interest  in  a  scene  of  mere  routine — 
neither  the  attorney,  nor  the  counsel,  nor  the  clerks  trouble 
themselves  about  the  appearance  of  a  place  which,  to  the 
youths,  is  a  schoolroom ;  to  the  clients,  a  passage ;  to  the 
chief,  a  laboratory.  The  greasy  furniture  is  handed  down  to 
successive  owners  with  such  scrupulous  care  that  in  some 
offices  may  still  be  seen  boxes  of  remainders,  machines  for 
twisting  parchment  gut,  and  bags  left  by  the  prosecuting 
parties  of  the  chatelet  (abbreviated  to  chiet) — a  court  which, 
under  the  old  order  of  things,  represented  the  present  court 
of  first  instance  (or  county  court). 

So  in  this  dark  office,  thick  with  dust,  there  was,  as  in  all 
its  fellows,  something  repulsive  to  the  clients — something 
which  made  it  one  of  the  most  hideous  monstrosities  of  Paris. 
Nay,  were  it  not  for  the  mouldy  sacristies  where  prayers  are 
weighed  out  and  paid  for  like  groceries  and  for  the  old-clothes 
shops,  where  flutter  the  rags  that  blight  all  the  illusions  of 
life  by  showing  us  the  last  end  of  all  our  festivities — an 
attorney's  office  would  be,  of  all  social  marts,  the  most  loath- 
some. But  we  might  say  the  same  of  the  gambling-hell,  of  the 
law  court,  of  the  lottery  office,  of  the  brothel. 

But  why  ?  In  these  places,  perhaps,  the  drama  being  played 
in  a  man's  soul  makes  him  indifferent  to  accessories,  which 
would  also  account  for  the  single-mindedness  of  great 
thinkers  and  men  of  great  ambitions. 

"  Where  is  my  penknife  ?" 

**  I  am  eating  my  breakfast." 

*•  You  go  and  be  hanged  !  here  is  a  blot  on  the  copy." 

"  Silence,  gentlemen  !  " 

These  various  exclamations  were  uttered  simultaneously  at 
the  moment  when  the  old  client  shut  the  door  with  the  sort 
of  humility  which  disfigures  the  movements  of  a  man  down 
on  his  luck.  The  stranger  tried  to  smile,  but  the  muscles  of 
his  face  relaxed  as  he  vainly  looked  for  some  symptoms  of 


240  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

amenity  on  the  inexorably  indifferent  faces  of  the  six  clerks. 
Accustomed,  no  doubt,  to  gauge  men,  he  very  politely  ad- 
dressed the  gutter-jumper,  hoping  to  get  a  civil  answer  from 
this  boy  of  all  work. 

"  Monsieur,  is  your  master  at  home?  " 

The  pert  messenger  made  no  reply,  but  patted  his  ear  wUh 
the  fingers  of  his  left  hand,  as  much  as  to  say,  **I  am  deaf." 

"What  do  you  want,  sir?"  asked  Godeschal,  swallowing 
as  he  spoke  a  mouthful  of  bread  big  enough  to  charge  a  four- 
pounder,  flourishing  his  knife  and  crossing  his  legs,  throwing 
up  one  foot  in  the  air  to  the  level  of  his  eyes. 

"This  is  the  fifth  time  I  have  called,"  replied  the  victim. 
"  I  wish  to  speak  to  Monsieur  Derville." 

"  On  business?  " 

**  Yes,  but  I  can  explain  it  to  no  one  but " 

"  M.  Derville  is  in  bed;  if  you  want  to  consult  him  on 
some  difficulty,  he  does  no  serious  work  till  midnight.  But 
if  you  will  lay  the  case  before  us,  we  could  help  you  just  as 
well  as  he  can  to " 

The  stranger  was  unmoved  ;  he  looked  timidly  about  him, 
like  a  dog  who  has  gotten  into  a  strange  kitchen  and  expects 
a  kick.  By  grace  of  their  profession,  lawyers'  clerks  have  no 
fear  of  thieves  ;  they  did  not  suspect  the  owner  of  the  box- 
coat,  and  left  him  to  study  the  place,  where  he  looked  in  vain 
for  a  chair  to  sit  on,  for  he  was  evidently  tired.  Attorneys, 
on  principle,  do  not  have  many  chairs  in  their  offices.  The 
inferior  client,  being  kept  waiting  on  his  feet,  goes  away 
grumbling,  but  then  he  does  not  waste  time,  which,  as  an  old 
lawyer  once  said,  is  not  allowed  for  when  the  bill  is  taxed. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  old  man,  "as  I  have  already  told 
you,  I  cannot  explain  my  business  to  any  one  but  M.  Derville. 
I  will  wait  till  he  is  up." 

Boucard  had  finished  his  bill.  He  smelt  the  fragrance  of 
his  chocolate,  rose  from  his  cane  armchair,  went  to  the 
chimney-piece,  looked  the  old  man  from  head  to  foot,  stared 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  241 

at  his  coat,  and  made  an  indescribable  grimace.  He  probably 
reflected  that  whichever  way  this  client  might  be  wrung,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  squeeze  out  a  centime,  so  he  put  in  a 
few  brief  words  to  rid  the  office  of  a  bad  customer. 

"  It  is  the  truth,  monsieur.  The  chief  only  works  at  night. 
If  your  business  is  important,  I  recommend  you  to  return  at 
one  in  the  morning."  The  stranger  looked  at  the  head  clerk 
with  a  bewildered  expression,  and  remained  motionless  for  a 
moment.  The  clerks,  accustomed  to  every  change  of  counte- 
nance, and  the  odd  whimsicalities  to  which  indecision  or 
absence  of  mind  gives  rise  in  "parties,"  went  on  eating, 
making  as  much  noise  with  their  jaws  as  horses  over  a  manger, 
and  paying  no  further  heed  to  the  old  man. 

"I  will  come  again  to-night,"  said  the  stranger  at  length, 
with  the  tenacious  desire,  peculiar  to  the  unfortunate,  to  catch 
humanity  at  fault. 

The  only  irony  allowed  to  poverty  is  to  drive  justice  and 
benevolence  to  unjust  denials.  When  a  poor  wretch  has 
once  convicted  society  of  falsehood,  he  throws  himself  more 
eagerly  on  the  mercy  of  God. 

"What  do  you  think  of  that  for  a  cracked  pot?"  said 
Simonnin,  without  waiting  till  the  old  man  had  shut  the  door. 

"  He  looks  as  if  he  had  been  buried  and  dug  up  again," 
said  a  clerk. 

"He  is  some  colonel  who  wants  his  arrears  of  pay,"  said 
the  head  clerk. 

"No,  he  is  a  retired  concierge,"  said  Godeschal. 

"  I  bet  you  he  is  a  nobleman,"  cried  Boucard. 

"I  bet  you  he  has  been  a  porter,"  retorted  Godeschal. 
"Only  porters  are  gifted  by  nature  with  shabby  box-coats,  as 
worn  and  greasy  and  frayed  as  that  old  body's.  And  did  you 
see  his  trodden-down  boots  that  let  the  water  in,  and  his  stock 
which  serves  for  a  shirt  ?     He  has  slept  in  a  dry  arch." 

"  He  may  be  of  noble  birth,  and  yet  have  pulled  the  door- 
latch,"  cried  Desroches.     "It  has  been  known  !  " 
16 


242  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

"No,"  Boucard  insisted,  in  the  midst  of  laughter,  **  I 
maintain  that  he  was  a  brewer  in  1789  and  a  colonel  in  the 
time  of  the  Republic." 

**  I  bet  theatre  tickets  round  that  he  never  was  a  soldier," 
said  Godeschal. 

**  Done  with  you,"  answered  Boucard. 

"Monsieur!  monsieur!"  shouted  the  little  messenger, 
opening  the  window. 

"What  are  you  at  now,  Simonnin?"  asked  Boucard. 

"I  am  calling  him  that  you  may  ask  him  whether  he  is  a 
colonel  or  a  porter;  he  must  know." 

All  the  clerks  laughed.  As  to  the  old  man,  he  was  already 
coming  upstairs  again. 

"  What  can  we  say  to  him  !  "  cried  Godeschal. 

"Leave  it  to  me,"  replied  Boucard. 

The  poor  man  came  in  nervously,  his  eyes  cast  down,  per- 
haps not  to  betray  how  hungry  he  was  by  looking  too  greedily 
at  the  eatables. 

"Monsieur,"  said  Boucard,  "will  you  have  the  kindness  to 
leave  your  name,  so  that  M.  Derville  may  know " 

"Chabert." 

"The  colonel  who  was  killed  at  Eylau?"  asked  Hur^, 
who,  having  so  far  said  nothing,  was  jealous  of  adding  a  jest 
to  all  the  others. 

"  The  same,  monsieur,"  replied  the  good  man,  with  antique 
simplicity.     And  he  went  away. 

"Whew!" 

**Done  brown  I " 

"Poof!" 

"Oh!" 

"Ah!" 

"Boum!" 

"  The  old  rogue  !  " 

**  Ting-a-ring-ting ! " 

"  Sold  again  !  " 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  243 

"  Monsieur  Desroches,  you  are  going  to  the  play  without 
paying,"  said  Hure  to  the  fourth  clerk,  giving  him  a  slap  on 
the  shoulder  that  might  have  killed  a  rhinoceros. 

There  was  a  storm  of  cat-calls,  cries,  and  exclamations, 
which  all  the  onomatopeia  of  the  language  would  fail  to 
represent. 

"  Which  theatre  shall  we  go  to  ?  " 

"  To  the  opera,"  cried  the  head  clerk. 

"In  the  first  place,"  said  Godeschal,  "  I  never  mentioned 
which  theatre.  I  might,  if  I  chose,  take  you  to  see  Madame 
Saqui." 

**  Madame  Saqui  is  not  the  play." 

"What  is  a  play?  "  replied  Godeschal.  "First,  we  must 
define  the  point  of  fact.  What  did  I  bet,  gentlemen?  A 
play.  What  is  a  play  ?  A  spectacle.  What  is  a  spectacle  ? 
Something  to  be  seen " 

"But  on  that  principle  you  would  pay  your  bet  by  taking 
us  to  see  the  water  run  under  the  Pont  Neuf  1  "  cried  Simon- 
nin,  interrupting  him. 

"To  be  seen  for  money,"  Godeschal  added. 

"  But  a  great  many  things  are  to  be  seen  for  money  that 
are  not  plays.     The  definition  is  defective,"  said  Desroches. 

"  But  do  listen  to  me  !  " 

"You  are  talking  nonsense,  my  dear  boy,"  said  Boucard. 

"  Is  '  Curtius  '  a  play  ?  "  asked  Godeschal. 

"  No,"  said  the  head  clerk,  "  it  is  a  collection  of  figures — 
but  it  is  a  spectacle." 

"  I  bet  you  a  hundred  francs  to  a  sou,"  Godeschal  resumed, 
"  that  Curtius'  Waxworks  form  such  a  show  as  might  be 
called  a  play  or  theatre.  It  contains  a  thing  to  be  seen  at 
various  prices,  according  to  the  place  you  choose  to  occupy." 

"And  so  on,  and  so  forth  !  "  said  Simonnin. 

"You  mind  I  don't  box  your  ears !  "  said  Godeschal. 

The  clerks  shrugged  their  shoulders. 

"  Besides,  it  is  not  proved  that  that  old  ape  was  not  making 


244  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

game  of  us,"  he  said,  dropping  his  argument,  which  was 
drowned  in  the  laughter  of  the  other  clerks.  **  On  my  honor, 
Colonel  Chabert  is  really  and  truly  dead.  His  wife  is  married 
again  to  Comte  Ferraud,  councilor  of  state.  Madame  Ferraud 
is  one  of  our  clients." 

**  Come,  the  case  is  remanded  till  to-morrow,"  said  Bou- 
card.  "  To  work,  gentlemen.  The  deuce  is  in  it ;  we  get 
nothing  done  here.  Finish  copying  that  appeal ;  it  must  be 
handed  in  before  the  sitting  of  the  fourth  chamber,  judgment 
is  to  be  given  to-day.     Come,  on  you  go  !  " 

"If  he  really  were  Colonel  Chabert,  would  not  that  impu- 
dent rascal  Simonnin  have  felt  the  leather  of  his  boot  in  the 
right  place  when  he  pretended  to  be  deaf?  "  said  Desroches, 
regarding  this  timely  remark  as  certainly  more  conclusive  than 
Godeschal's. 

"  Since  nothing  is  settled,"  said  Boucard,  "  let  us  all  agree 
to  go  to  the  upper  boxes  of  the  Fran^ais  and  see  Talma  in 
'  Nero.'     Simonnin  may  go  to  the  pit." 

And  thereupon  the  head  clerk  sat  down  at  his  table,  and 
the  others  followed  his  example. 

**  Given  in  June  eighteen  hundred  and  fourteen  (in  words)," 
said  Godeschal.     "  Ready  ?  " 

"Yes,"  replied  the  two  copying  clerks  and  the  engrosser, 
whose  pens  forthwith  began  to  creak  over  the  stamped  paper, 
making  as  much  noise  in  the  office  as  a  hundred  cockchafers 
imprisoned  by  schoolboys  in  paper  cages. 

"  And  we  hope  that  my  lords  on  the  bench,^^  the  extempor- 
izing clerk  went  on.  "  Stop !  I  must  read  my  sentence 
through  again.     I  do  not  understand  it  myself." 

*'  Forty-six  (that  must  often  happen)  and  three  forty-nines," 
said  Boucard. 

**  We  hope,^^  Godeschal  began  again,  after  reading  all 
through  the  document,  ^^  that  my  lords  on  the  bench  will  not 
be  less  magnanimous  than  the  august  author  of  the  decree,  and 
that  they  7vill  do  justice  against  the  miserable  claims  of  the  acting 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  245 

commUtee  of  the  chief  board  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  by  inter- 
preting the  law  in  the  wide  sense  we  have  here  set  forth " 

"  Monsieur  Godeschal,  wouldn't  you  like  a  glass  of  water?" 
said  the  little  messenger. 

"That  imp  of  a  boy!"  said  Boucard.  "Here,  get  on 
your  double-soled  shanks-mare,  take  this  packet,  and  spin  off 
to  the  Invalides." 

^*  Here  set  forth, ""  Godeschal  went  on.  "Add  in  the  interest 
of  Madame  la  Vicomtesse  (at  full  length)  de  Grandlieu." 

"  What !  "  cried  the  chief,  "  are  you  thinking  of  drawing 
up  an  appeal  in  the  case  of  Vicomtesse  de  Grandlieu  against 
the  Legion  of  Honor — a  case  for  the  office  to  stand  or  fall 
by  ?  You  are  something  like  an  ass  !  Have  the  goodness  to 
put  aside  your  copies  and  your  notes ;  you  may  keep  all  that 
for  the  case  of  Navarreins  against  the  Hospitals.  It  is  late ; 
I  will  draw  up  a  little  petition  myself,  with  a  due  allowance 
of  *  inasmuch,'  and  go  to  the  courts  myself." 

This  scene  is  typical  of  the  thousand  delights  which,  when 
we  look  back  on  our  youth,  make  us  say,  "  Those  were  good 
times." 

At  about  one  in  the  morning  Colonel  Chabert,  self-styled, 
knocked  at  the  door  of  Maitre  Derville,  attorney  to  the  court 
of  first  instance  in  the  department  of  the  Seine.  The  porter 
told  him  that  Monsieur  Derville  had  not  yet  come  in.  The 
old  man  said  he  had  an  appointment,  and  was  shown  upstairs 
to  the  rooms  occupied  by  the  famous  lawyer,  who,  notwith- 
standing his  youth,  was  considered  to  have  one  of  the  longest 
heads  in  Paris. 

Having  rung,  the  distrustful  applicant  was  not  a  little 
astonished  at  finding  the  head  clerk  busily  arranging  in  con- 
venient order  on  his  master's  dining-room  table  the  papers 
relating  to  the  cases  to  be  tried  on  the  morrow.  The  clerk, 
not  less  astonished,  bowed  to  the  colonel  and  begged  him  to 
take  a  seat,  which  the  client  did. 


246  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

"On  my  word,  monsieur,  I  thought  you  were  joking  yes- 
terday when  you  named  such  an  hour  for  an  interview,"  said 
the  old  man,  with  the  forced  mirth  of  a  ruined  man,  who 
does  his  best  to  smile. 

"The  clerks  were  joking,  but  they  were  speaking  the  truth 
too,"  replied  the  man,  going  on  with  his  work.  "  M.  Der- 
ville  chooses  this  hour  for  studying  his  cases,  taking  stock  of 
their  possibilities,  arranging  how  to  conduct  them,  deciding 
on  the  line  of  defense.  His  prodigious  intellect  is  freer  at 
this  hour — the  only  time  when  he  can  have  the  silence 
and  quiet  needed  for  the  conception  of  good  ideas.  Since 
he  entered  the  profession,  you  are  the  third  person  to  come 
to  him  for  a  consultation  at  this  midnight  hour.  After  com- 
ing in,  the  chief  will  discuss  each  case,  read  everything, 
spend  four  or  five  hours  perhaps  over  the  business,  then  he 
will  ring  for  me  and  explain  to  me  his  intentions.  In  the 
morning,  from  ten  till  two,  he  hears  what  his  clients  have  to 
say,  then  he  spends  the  rest  of  his  day  in  appointments.  In 
the  evening  he  goes  into  society  to  keep  up  his  connections. 
So  he  has  only  the  night  for  undermining  his  cases,  ransack- 
ing the  arsenal  of  the  code,  and  laying  his  plan  of  battle. 
He  is  determined  never  to  lose  a  case ;  he  loves  his  art. 
He  will  not  undertake  every  case,  as  his  brethren  do.  That 
is  his  life,  an  exceptionally  active  one.  And  he  makes  a  great 
deal  of  money." 

As  he  listened  to  this  explanation  the  old  man  sat  silent, 
and  his  strange  face  assumed  an  expression  so  bereft  of  intel- 
ligence that  the  clerk,  after  looking  at  him,  thought  no  more 
about  him. 

A  few  minutes  later  Derville  came  in,  in  evening  dress  ;  his 
head  clerk  opened  the  door  to  him,  and  went  back  to  finish 
arranging  the  papers.  The  young  lawyer  paused  for  a  mo- 
ment in  amazement  on  seeing  in  the  dim  light  the  strange 
client  who  awaited  him.  Colonel  Chabert  was  as  absolutely 
immovable  as  one  of  the  wax  figures  in  Curtius'  collection  to 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  247 

which  Godeschal  had  proposed  to  treat  his  fellow-clerks.  This 
quiescence  would  not  have  been  a  subject  for  astonishment  if 
it  had  not  completed  the  supernatural  aspect  of  the  man's 
whole  person.  The  old  soldier  was  dry  and  lean.  His  fore- 
head, intentionally  hidden  under  a  smoothly  combed  wig, 
gave  him  a  look  of  mystery.  His  eyes  seemed  shrouded  in  a 
transparent  film ;  you  would  have  compared  them  to  dingy 
mother-of-pearl  with  a  blue  iridescence  changing  in  the  gleam 
of  the  wax-lights.  His  face,  pale,  livid,  and  as  thin  as  a 
knife,  if  I  may  use  such  a  vulgar  expression,  was  the  face  of 
the  dead.     Round  his  neck  was  a  tight  black  silk  stock. 

Below  the  dark  line  of  this  rag  the  body  was  so  completely 
hidden  in  shadow  that  a  man  of  imagination  might  have  sup- 
posed the  old  head  was  due  to  some  chance  play  of  light  and 
shade,  or  have  taken  it  for  a  portrait  by  Rembrandt,  without 
a  frame.  The  brim  of  the  hat  which  covered  the  old  man's 
brow  cast  a  black  line  of  shadow  on  the  upper  part  of  the 
face.  This  grotesque  effect,  though  natural,  threw  into  relief 
by  contrast  the  white  furrows,  the  cold  wrinkles,  the  colorless 
tone  of  the  corpse-like  countenance.  And  the  absence  of  all 
movement  in  the  figure,  of  all  fire  in  the  eye,  were  in  harmony 
with  a  certain  look  of  melancholy  madness  and  the  deteriorat- 
ing symptoms  characteristic  of  senility,  giving  the  face  an 
indescribably  ill-starred  look  which  no  human  words  could 
render. 

But  an  observer,  especially  a  lawyer,  could  also  have  read 
in  this  stricken  man  the  signs  of  deep  sorrow,  the  traces  of 
grief  which  had  worn  into  this  face,  as  drops  of  water  from 
the  sky  falling  on  fine  marble  at  last  destroy  its  beauty.  A 
physician,  an  author,  or  a  judge  might  have  discerned  a  whole 
drama  at  the  sight  of  its  sublime  horror,  while  the  least  charm 
was  its  resemblance  to  the  grotesques  which  artists  amuse 
themselves  by  sketching  on  a  corner  of  the  lithographic  stone 
while  chatting  with  a  friend. 

On  seeing  the  attorney,  the  stranger  started,  with  the  con- 


248  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

vulsive  thrill  that  comes  over  a  poet  when  a  sudden  noise 
rouses  him  from  a  fruitful  reverie  in  silence  and  at  night. 
The  old  man  hastily  removed  his  hat  and  rose  to  bow  to  the 
young  man ;  the  leather  lining  of  his  hat  was  doubtless  very 
greasy ;  his  wig  stuck  to  it  without  his  noticing  it,  and  left  his 
head  bare,  showing  his  skull  horribly  disfigured  by  a  scar 
beginning  at  the  nape  of  the  neck  and  ending  over  the  right 
eye,  a  prominent  seam  all  across  his  head.  The  sudden 
removal  of  the  dirty  wig  which  the  poor  man  wore  to  hide 
this  gash  gave  the  two  lawyers  no  inclination  to  laugh,  so 
horrible  to  behold  was  this  riven  skull.  The  first  idea  sug- 
gested by  the  sight  of  this  old  wound  was,  "  His  intelligence 
must  have  escaped  through  that  cut." 

"If  this  is  not  Colonel  Chabert,  he  is  some  thorough-going 
trooper  !  "   thought  Boucard. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Derville,  **  to  whom  have  I  the  honor  of 
speaking  ? ' ' 

"To  Colonel  Chabert." 

"Which?" 

"  He  who  was  killed  at  Eylau,"  replied  the  old  man. 

On  hearing  this  strange  speech,  the  lawyer  and  his  clerk 
glanced  at  each  other,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  He  is  mad." 

"Monsieur,"  the  colonel  went  on,  "I  wish  to  confide  to 
you  the  secret  of  my  position." 

A  thing  well  worthy  of  note  is  the  natural  intrepidity  of 
lawyers.  Whether  from  the  habit  of  receiving  a  great  many 
persons,  or  from  the  deep  sense  of  the  protection  conferred 
on  them  by  the  law,  or  from  confidence  in  their  mission,  they 
enter  everywhere,  fearing  nothing,  like  priests  and  physicians. 
Derville  signed  to  Boucard,  who  vanished. 

"During  the  day,  sir,"  said  the  attorney,  "I  am  not  so 
miserly  of  my  time,  but  at  night  every  minute  is  precious. 
So  be  brief  and  concise.  Go  to  the  facts  without  digression. 
I  will  ask  for  any  explanations  I  may  consider  necessary. 
Speak." 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  249 

Having  bid  his  strange  client  to  be  seated,  the  young  man 
sat  down  at  the  table  ;  but  while  he  gave  his  attention  to  the 
deceased  colonel,  he  turned  over  the  bundles  of  papers, 

**You  know,  perhaps,"  said  the  dead  man,  "that  I  com- 
manded a  cavalry  regiment  at  Eylau.  I  was  of  important 
service  to  the  success  of  Murat's  famous  charge  which  decided 
the  victory.  Unhappily  for  me,  my  death  is  a  historical  fact, 
recorded  in  Vidoires  et  Conquetes,  where  it  is  related  in  full 
detail.  We  cut  through  the  three  Russian  lines,  which  at 
once  closed  up  and  formed  again,  so  that  we  had  to  repeat 
the  movement  back  again.  At  the  moment  when  we  were 
Hearing  the  Emperor,  after  having  scattered  the  Russians,  I 
came  against  a  squadron  of  the  enemy's  cavalry.  I  rushed  at 
the  obstinate  brutes.  Two  Russian  officers,  perfect  giants, 
attacked  me  both  at  once.  One  of  them  gave  me  a  cut 
across  the  head  that  crashed  through  everything,  even  a  black 
silk  cap  I  wore  next  my  head,  and  cut  deep  into  the  skull. 
I  fell  from  my  horse.  Murat  came  up  to  support  me ;  he 
rode  over  my  body,  he  and  all  his  men,  fifteen  hundred  of 
them — there  might  have  been  more  !  My  death  was  announced 
to  the  Emperor,  who  as  a  precaution — for  he  was  fond  of  me, 
was  the  master — wished  to  know  if  there  were  no  hope  of 
saving  the  man  he  had  to  thank  for  such  a  vigorous  attack. 
He  sent  two  surgeons  to  identify  me  and  bring  me  into  the 
hospital,  saying,  perhaps  too  carelessly,  for  he  was  very  busy, 
*  Go  and  see  whether  by  any  chance  poor  Chabert  is  still 
alive.*  These  rascally  saw-bones,  who  had  just  seen  me 
lying  under  the  hoofs  of  the  horses  of  two  regiments,  no 
doubt  did  not  trouble  themselves  to  feel  my  pulse,  and  re- 
ported that  I  was  quite  dead.  The  certificate  of  death  was 
probably  made  out  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  military 
jurisprudence." 

As  he  heard  his  visitor  express  himself  with  complete 
lucidity,  and  relate  a  story  so  probable  though  so  strange,  the 
young  lawyer  ceased  fingering  the  papers,  rested  his  left  elbow 


250  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

on  the  table,  and  with  his  head  on  his  hand  looked  steadily 
at  the  colonel. 

<<  Do  you  know,  monsieur,  that  I  am  lawyer  to  the  Com- 
tesse  Ferraud,"  he  said,  interrupting  the  speaker,  "  Colonel 
Chabert's  widow  ? ' ' 

"  My  wife — yes,  monsieur.  Therefore,  after  a  hundred 
fruitless  attempts  to  interest  lawyers,  who  have  all  thought  me 
mad,  I  made  up  my  mind  to  come  to  you.  I  will  tell  you  of 
my  misfortunes  afterwards;  for  the  present,  allow  me  to 
prove  the  facts,  explaining  rather  how  things  must  have  fallen 
out  rather  than  how  they  did  occur.  Certain  circumstances, 
known,  I  suppose,  to  no  one  but  the  Almighty,  compel  me  to 
speak  of  some  things  as  hypothetical.  The  wounds  I  had 
received  must  presumably  have  produced  tetanus,  or  have 
thrown  me  into  a  state  analogous  to  that  of  a  disease  called,  I 
believe,  catalepsy.  Otherwise  how  is  it  conceivable  that  I 
should  have  been  stripped,  as  is  the  custom  in  time  of  war, 
and  thrown  into  the  common  grave  by  the  men  ordered  to 
bury  the  dead  ? 

"Allow  me  here  to  refer  to  a  detail  of  which  I  could  know 
nothing  till  after  the  event,  which,  after  all,  I  must  speak  of  as 
my  death.  At  Stuttgart,  in  1814,  I  met  an  old  quartermaster 
of  my  regiment.  This  dear  fellow,  the  only  man  who  chose 
to  recognize  me,  and  of  whom  I  will  tell  you  more  later, 
explained  the  marvel  of  my  preservation,  by  telling  me  that 
my  horse  was  shot  in  the  flank  at  the  moment  when  I  was 
wounded.  Man  and  beast  went  down  together,  like  a  monk 
cut  out  of  card-paper.  As  I  fell,  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  I 
was  no  doubt  covered  by  the  body  of  my  horse,  which  pro- 
tected me  from  being  trampled  to  death  or  hit  by  a  ball. 

"  When  I  came  to  myself,  monsieur,  I  was  in  a  position 
and  an  atmosphere  of  which  I  could  give  you  no  idea  if  I 
talked  till  to-morrow.  The  little  air  there  was  to  breathe  was 
foul.  I  wanted  to  move,  and  found  no  room.  I  opened  my 
eyes,  and  saw  nothing.     The  most  alarming  circumstance  was 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  251 

the  lack  of  air,  and  this  enlightened  me  as  to  my  situation. 
I  understood  that  no  fresh  air  could  penetrate  to  me,  and 
that  I  must  die.  This  thought  took  off  the  sense  of  intoler- 
able pain  which  had  aroused  me.  There  was  a  violent  singing 
in  my  ears,  I  heard — or  I  thought  I  heard,  I  will  assert 
nothing — groans  from  the  world  of  dead  among  whom  I  was 
lying.  Some  nights  I  still  think  I  hear  those  stifled  moans ; 
though  the  remembrance  of  that  time  is  very  obscure,  and 
my  memory  very  indistinct,  in  spite  of  my  impressions  of  far 
more  acute  suffering  I  was  fated  to  go  through,  and  which 
have  confused  my  ideas. 

"But  there  was  something  more  awful  than  cries;  there 
was  a  silence  such  as  I  have  never  known  elsewhere — literally, 
the  silence  of  the  grave.  At  last,  by  raising  my  hands  and 
feeling  the  dead,  I  discerned  a  vacant  space  between  my  head 
and  the  human  carrion  above.  I  could  thus  measure  the 
space,  granted  by  a  chance  of  which  I  knew  not  the  cause. 
It  would  seem  that,  thanks  to  the  carelessness  and  the  haste 
with  which  we  had  been  pitched  into  the  trench,  two  dead 
bodies  had  leaned  across  and  against  each  other,  forming  an 
angle  like  that  made  by  two  cards  when  a  child  is  building  a 
card  castle.  Feeling  about  me  at  once,  for  there  was  no  time 
for  play,  I  happily  felt  an  arm  lying  detached,  the  arm  of  a 
Hercules !  A  stout  bone,  to  which  I  owed  my  rescue.  But 
for  this  unhoped-for  help,  I  must  have  perished.  But,  with  a 
fury  you  may  imagine,  I  began  to  work  my  way  through  the 
bodies  w^hich  separated  me  from  the  layer  of  earth  which  had 
no  doubt  been  thrown  over  us — I  say  us,  as  if  there  had  been 
others  living !  I  worked  with  a  will,  monsieur,  for  here  I 
am  !  But  to  this  day  I  do  not  know  how  I  succeeded  in 
getting  through  the  pile  of  flesh  which  formed  a  barrier 
between  me  and  life.  You  will  say  I  had  three  arms.  This 
crowbar,  which  I  used  cleverly  enough,  opened  out  a  little  air 
between  the  bodies  I  moved,  and  I  economized  my  breath. 
At  last  I  saw  daylight,  but  through  snow ! 


252  COLONEL  CHABERT. 

"At  that  moment  I  perceived  that  my  head  was  cut  open. 
Happily  my  blood,  or  that  of  my  comrades,  or  perhaps  the 
torn  skin  of  my  horse,  who  knows,  had  in  coagulating  formed 
a  sort  of  natural  plaster.  But,  in  spite  of  it,  I  fainted  away 
when  my  head  came  into  contact  with  the  snow.  However, 
the  little  warmth  left  in  me  melted  the  snow  about  me ;  and 
when  I  recovered  consciousness,  I  found  myself  in  the  middle 
of  a  round  hole,  where  I  stood  shouting  as  long  as  I  could. 
But  the  sun  was  rising,  so  I  had  very  little  chance  of  being 
heard.  Was  there  any  one  in  the  fields  yet  ?  I  pulled 
myself  up,  using  my  feet  as  a  spring,  resting  on  one  of  the 
dead,  whose  ribs  were  firm.  You  may  suppose  that  this  was 
not  the  moment  for  saying,  *  Respect  courage  in  misfortune  ! ' 
In  short,  monsieur,  after  enduring  the  anguish,  if  the  word  is 
strong  enough  for  my  frenzy  of  seeing  for  a  long  time,  yes, 
quite  a  long  time,  those  cursed  Germans  flying  from  a  voice 
they  heard  where  they  could  see  no  one,  I  was  dug  out  by  a 
woman,  who  was  brave  or  curious  enough  to  come  close  to  my 
head,  which  must  have  looked  as  though  it  had  sprouted  from 
the  ground  like  a  mushroom.  This  woman  went  to  fetch  her 
husband,  and  between  them  they  got  me  to  their  poor  hovel. 

*'  It  would  seem  that  I  must  have  again  fallen  into  a  cata- 
lepsy— allow  me  to  use  the  word  to  describe  a  state  of  which 
I  have  no  idea,  but  which,  from  the  account  given  by  my 
hosts,  I  suppose  to  have  been  the  effect  of  that  malady.  I 
remained  for  six  months  between  life  and  death  ;  not  speak- 
ing, or,  if  I  spoke,  talking  in  delirium.  At  last,  my  hosts 
got  me  admitted  to  the  hospital  at  Heilsberg.  You  will 
understand,  monsieur,  that  I  came  out  of  the  womb  of  the 
grave  as  naked  as  I  came  from  my  mother's ;  so  that  six 
months  afterwards,  when  I  remembered,  one  fine  morning, 
that  I  had  been  Colonel  Chabert,  and  when,  on  recovering 
my  wits,  I  tried  to  exact  from  my  nurse  rather  more  respect 
than  she  paid  to  any  poor  devil,  all  my  companions  in  the 
ward  began  to  laugh.     Luckily  for  me,  the  surgeon,  out  of 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  253 

professional  pride,  had  answered  for  my  cure,  and  was 
naturally  interested  in  his  patient.  When  I  told  him  coher- 
ently about  my  former  life,  this  good  man,  named  Sparch- 
mann,  signed  a  deposition,  drawn  up  in  the  legal  form  of 
his  country,  giving  an  account  of  the  miraculous  way  in 
which  I  had  escaped  from  the  trench  dug  for  the  dead,  the 
day  and  hour  when  I  had  been  found  by  my  benefactress  and 
her  husband,  the  nature  and  exact  spot  of  my  injuries,  adding 
to  these  documents  a  description  of  my  person. 

"  Well,  monsieur,  I  have  neither  these  important  pieces  of 
evidence  nor  the  declaration  I  made  before  a  notary  at 
Heilsberg,  with  a  view  of  establishing  my  identity.  From 
the  day  when  I  was  turned  out  of  that  town  by  the  events  of 
war,  I  have  wandered  about  like  a  vagabond,  begging  my 
bread,  treated  as  a  madman  when  I  have  told  my  story,  with- 
out ever  having  found  or  earned  a  sou  to  enable  me  to  recover 
the  deeds  which  would  prove  my  statements  and  restore  me 
to  society.  My  sufferings  have  often  kept  me  for  six  months 
at  a  time  in  some  little  town,  where  every  care  was  taken  of 
the  invalid  Frenchman,  but  where  he  was  laughed  at  to  his 
face  as  soon  as  he  said  he  was  Colonel  Chabert.  For  a  long 
time  that  laughter,  those  doubts,  used  to  put  me  into  rages 
which  did  me  harm,  and  which  even  led  to  my  being  locked 
up  at  Stuttgart  as  a  madman.  And,  indeed,  as  you  may  judge 
from  my  story,  there  was  ample  reason  for  shutting  such  a 
man  up. 

"At  the  end  of  two  years'  detention,  which  I  was  com- 
pelled to  submit  to,  after  hearing  my  keepers  say  a  thousand 
times,  '  Here  is  a  poor  man  who  thinks  he  is  Colonel  Cha- 
bert '  to  people  who  would  reply,  '  Poor  fellow ! '  I  became 
convinced  of  the  impossibility  of  my  own  adventure.  I  grew 
melancholy,  resigned  and  quiet,  and  gave  up  calling  myself 
Colonel  Chabert,  in  order  to  get  out  of  my  prison,  and  see 
France  once  more.  Oh,  monsieur  !  To  see  Paris  again  was 
a  delirium  which  I " 


254  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

Without  finishing  his  sentence.  Colonel  Chabert  fell  into  a 
deep  study,  which  Derville  respected. 

"One  fine  day,"  his  visitor  resumed,  "one  spring  day, 
they  gave  me  the  key  of  the  fields,  as  we  say,  and  ten  thalers, 
admitting  that  I  talked  quite  sensibly  on  all  subjects,  and  no 
longer  called  myself  Colonel  Chabert.  On  my  honor,  at  that 
time,  and  even  to  this  day,  sometimes  I  hate  my  name.  I 
wish  I  were  not  myself.  The  sense  of  my  rights  kills  me.  If 
ray  illness  had  but  deprived  me  of  all  memory  of  my  past  life, 
I  could  be  happy.  I  should  have  entered  the  service  again 
under  any  name,  no  matter  what,  and  should,  perhaps,  have 
been  made  a  field-marshal  in  Austria  or  Russia.    Who  knows  ?" 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  attorney,  "you  have  upset  all  my 
ideas.  I  feel  as  if  I  heard  you  in  a  dream.  Pause  for  a 
moment,  I  beg  of  you." 

"  You  are  the  only  person,"  said  the  colonel,  with  a  melan- 
choly look,  "  who  ever  listened  to  me  so  patiently.  No 
lawyer  has  been  willing  to  lend  me  ten  napoleons  to  enable 
me  to  procure  from  Germany  the  necessary  documents  to 
begin  my  lawsuit " 

"  What  lawsuit  ?  "  said  the  attorney,  who  had  forgotten  his 
client's  painful  position  in  listening  to  the  narrative  of  his 
past  sufferings. 

"Why,  monsieur,  is  not  the  Comtesse  Ferraud  my  wife? 
She  has  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year,  which  belong  to  me, 
and  she  will  not  give  me  a  sou.  When  I  tell  lawyers  these 
things  —  men  of  sense  ;  when  I  propose — I,  a  beggar — to 
bring  an  action  against  a  count  and  countess;  when  I — a  dead 
man — bring  up  as  against  a  certificate  of  death  a  certificate 
of  marriage  and  registers  of  births,  they  show  me  out,  either 
with  the  air  of  cold  politeness,  which  you  all  know  how  to 
assume  to  rid  yourselves  of  a  hapless  wretch,  or  brutally,  like 
men  who  think  they  have  to  deal  with  a  swindler  or  a  madman 
— it  depends  on  their  nature.  I  have  been  buried  under  the 
dead  ;  but  now  I  am  buried  under  the  living,  under  papers, 


COLONEL  CHaBERT.  255 

under  facts,  under  the  whole  of  society,  which  wants  to  shove 
me  underground  again  !  ' ' 

"  Pray  resume  your  narrative,"  said  Derville. 

"'Pray  resume  it!'"  cried  the  hapless  old  man,  taking 
the  young  lawyer'^  hand.  "  That  is  the  first  polite  word  I 
have  heard  since " 

The  colonel  wept.  Gratitude  choked  his  voice.  The  ap- 
pealing and  unutterable  eloquence  that  lies  in  the  eyes,  in  a 
gesture,  even  in  silence,  entirely  convinced  Derville,  and 
touched  him  deeply. 

"Listen,  monsieur,"  said  he;  "I  have  this  evening  won 
three  hundred  francs  at  cards.  I  may  very  well  lay  out  half 
that  sum  in  making  a  man  happy.  I  will  begin  the  inquiries 
and  researches  necessary  to  obtain  the  documents  of  which 
you  speak,  and  until  they  arrive  I  will  give  you  five  francs  a 
day.  If  you  are  Colonel  Chabert,  you  will  pardon  the  small- 
ness  of  the  loan  as  coming  from  a  young  man  who  has  his 
fortune  to  make.     Proceed." 

The  colonel,  as  he  called  himself,  sat  for  a  moment  motion- 
less and  bewildered ;  the  depth  of  his  woes  had  no  doubt 
destroyed  his  powers  of  belief.  Though  he  was  eager  in  pur- 
suit of  his  military  distinction,  of  his  fortune,  of  himself, 
perhaps  it  was  in  obedience  to  the  inexplicable  feeling,  the 
latent  germ  in  every  man's  heart,  to  which  we  owe  the  experi- 
ments of  alchemists,  the  passion  for  glory,  the  discoveries  of 
astronomy  and  of  physics,  everything  which  prompts  man  to 
expand  his  being  by  multiplying  himself  through  deeds  or 
ideas.  In  his  mind  the  Ego  was  now  but  a  secondary  object, 
just  as  the  vanity  of  success  or  the  pleasure  of  winning 
become  dearer  to  the  gambler  than  the  object  he  has  at  stake. 
The  young  lawyer's  words  were  as  a  miracle  to  this  man,  for 
ten  years  repudiated  by  his  wife,  by  justice,  by  the  whole  social 
creation.  To  find  in  a  lawyer's  office  the  ten  gold-pieces 
which  had  so  long  been  refused  him  by  so  many  people,  and 
in  so  many  ways !     The  colonel  was  like  the  lady  who,  hav- 


256  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

ing  been  ill  of  a  fever  for  fifteen  years,  fancied  she  had  some 
fresh  complaint  when  she  was  cured.  There  are  joys  in 
which  we  have  ceased  to  believe ;  they  fall  on  us,  it  is  like  a 
thunderbolt ;  they  burn  us.  The  poor  man's  gratitude  was 
too  great  to  find  utterance.  To  superficial  observers  he 
seemed  cold,  but  Derville  saw  complete  honesty  under  this 
amazement.     A  swindler  would  have  found  his  voice. 

"  Where  was  I  ?  "  said  the  colonel,  with  the  simplicity  of  a 
child  or  of  a  soldier,  for  there  is  often  something  of  the  child 
in  a  true  soldier,  and  almost  always  something  of  the  soldier 
in  a  child,  especially  in  France. 

"At  Stuttgart.  You  were  just  out  of  prison,"  said  M. 
Derville,  the  attorney. 

"  You  know  my  wife  ?  "  asked  the  colonel. 
"  Yes,"  said  Derville,  with  a  bow. 
"  What  is  she  like  ?  " 
"Still  quite  charming." 

The  old  man  held  up  his  hand,  and  seemed  to  be  swallow- 
ing down  some  secret  anguish  with  the  grave  and  solemn 
resignation  that  is  so  characteristic  of  men  who  have  stood 
the  ordeal  of  blood  and  fire  on  the  battlefield. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  he,  with  a  sort  of  cheerfulness — for  he 
breathed  again,  the  poor  colonel ;  he  had  again  risen  from 
the  grave;  he  had  just  melted  a  covering  of  snow  less  easily 
thawed  than  that  which  had  once  before  frozen  his  head ;  and 
he  drew  a  deep  breath,  as  if  he  had  just  escaped  from  a  dun- 
geon— "  Monsieur,  if  I  had  been  a  handsome  young  fellow, 
none  of  my  misfortunes  would  have  befallen  me.  Women 
believe  in  men  when  they  flavor  their  speeches  with  the  word 
love.  They  hurry  then,  they  come,  they  go,  they  are  every- 
where at  once  ;  they  intrigue,  they  assert  facts,  they  play  the 
very  devil  for  a  man  who  takes  their  fancy.  But  how  could 
I  interest  a  woman  ?  I  had  a  face  like  a  requiem.  I  was 
dressed  like  a  sans-culotte.  I  was  more  like  an  Esquimaux 
than  a  Frenchman — I,  who  had  formerly  been  considered  one 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  257 

of  the  smartest  of  fops  in  1799  ! — I,  Chabert,  Count  of  the 
Empire. 

"Well,  on  the  very  day  when  I  was  turned  out  into  the 
streets  like  a  dog,  I  met  the  quartermaster  of  whom  I  just  now 
spoke.  This  old  soldier's  name  was  Boutin.  The  poor  devil 
and  I  made  the  queerest  pair  of  broken-down  hacks  I  ever  set 
eyes  on.  I  met  him  out  walking;  but  though  I  recognized 
him,  he  could  not  possibly  guess  who  I  was.  We  went  into  a 
tavern  together.  In  there,  when  I  told  him  my  name,  Bou- 
tin's mouth  opened  from  ear  to  ear  in  a  roar  of  laughter,  like 
the  bursting  of  a  mortar.  That  mirth,  monsieur,  was  one  of 
the  keenest  pangs  I  have  known.  It  told  me  without  diguise 
how  great  were  the  changes  in  me  !  I  was,  then,  unrecog- 
nizable even  to  the  humblest  and  most  grateful  of  my  former 
friends ! 

"I  had  once  saved  Boutin's  life,  but  it  was  only  the  repay- 
ment of  a  debt  I  owed  him.  I  need  not  tell  you  how  he  did 
me  this  service;  it  was  at  Ravenna,  in  Italy.  The  house 
where  Boutin  prevented  my  being  stabbed  was  not  extremely 
respectable.  At  that  time  I  was  not  a  colonel,  but,  like  Boutin 
himself,  a  common  trooper.  Happily  there  were  certain 
details  of  this  adventure  which  could  be  known  only  to  us 
two,  and  when  I  recalled  them  to  his  mind  his  incredulity 
diminished.  I  then  told  him  the  story  of  my  singular  expe- 
riences. Although  my  eyes  and  my  voice,  he  told  me,  were 
strangely  altered,  although  I  had  neither  hair,  teeth,  nor  eye- 
brows, and  was  as  colorless  as  an  Albino,  he  at  last  recognized 
his  colonel  in  the  beggar,  after  a  thousand  questions,  which  I 
answered  triumphantly. 

'*  He  related  his  adventures  ;  they  were  not  less  extraordi- 
nary than  my  own  ;  he  had  lately  comeback  from  the  frontiers 
of  China,  which  he  had  tried  to  cross  after  escaping  from 
Siberia.  He  told  me  of  the  catastrophe  of  the  Russian 
campaign,  and  of  Napoleon's  first  abdication.  That  news 
vras  one  of  the  things  which  caused  me  most  anguish  ! 
17 


258  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

tc  YVe  were  two  curious  derelicts,  having  been  rolled  over 
the  globe  as  pebbles  are  rolled  by  the  ocean  when  storms  bear 
them  from  shore  to  shore.  Between  us  we  had  seen  Egypt, 
Syria,  Spain,  Russia,  Holland,  Germany,  Italy  and  Dalmatia, 
England,  China,  Tartary,  Siberia ;  the  only  thing  wanting 
was  that  neither  of  us  had  been  to  America  or  the  Indies. 
Finally  Boutin,  who  still  was  more  locomotive  than  I,  under- 
took to  go  to  Paris  as  quickly  as  might  be  to  inform  my  wife 
of  the  predicament  in  which  I  was.  I  wrote  a  long  letter  full 
of  details  to  Madame  Chabert.  That,  monsieur,  was  the 
fourth  !  If  I  had  had  any  relations,  perhaps  nothing  of  all 
this  might  have  happened ;  but,  to  be  frank  with  you,  I  am 
but  a  workhouse  child,  a  soldier,  whose  sole  fortune  was  his 
courage,  whose  sole  family  is  mankind  at  large,  whose  country 
is  France,  whose  only  protector  is  the  Almighty.  Nay,  I  am 
wrong  !  I  had  a  father — the  Emperor.  Ah  !  if  he  were  but 
here,  the  dear  man  !  If  he  could  see  his  Chabert,  as  he  used 
to  call  me,  in  the  state  in  which  I  am  now,  he  would  be  in  a 
rage !  What  is  to  be  done  ?  Our  sun  is  set,  and  we  are  all 
out  in  the  cold  now.  After  all,  political  events  might  account 
for  my  wife's  silence  ! 

"Boutin  set  out.  He  was  a  lucky  fellow!  He  had  two 
bears,  admirably  trained,  which  brought  him  in  a  living.  I 
could  not  go  with  him ;  the  pain  I  suffered  forbade  my  walk- 
ing long  stages.  I  wept,  monsieur,  when  we  parted,  after  I 
had  gone  as  far  as  my  state  allowed  in  company  with  him  and 
his  bears.  At  Carlsruhe  I  had  an  attack  of  neuralgia  in  the 
head,  and  lay  for  six  weeks  on  straw  in  an  inn,  I  should 
never  have  ended  if  I  were  to  tell  you  all  the  distresses  of  my 
life  as  a  beggar.  Moral  suffering,  before  which  physical 
suffering  pales,  nevertheless  excites  less  pity,  because  it  is  not 
seen.  I  remember  shedding  tears,  as  I  stood  in  front  of  a  fine 
house  in  Strassburg  where  I  once  had  given  an  entertainment, 
and  where  nothing  was  given  me,  not  even  a  piece  of  bread. 
Having  agreed  with  Boutin  on  the  road  I  was  to  take,  I  went 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  259 

to  every  postofl&ce  to  ask  if  there  were  a  letter  or  some  money 
for  me.  I  arrived  at  Paris  without  having  found  either.  What 
despair  I  had  been  forced  to  endure  !  '  Boutin  must  be  dead  I ' 
I  told  myself,  and  in  fact  the  poor  fellow  was  killed  at  Water- 
loo. I  heard  of  his  death  later,  and  by  mere  chance.  His 
errand  to  my  wife  had,  of  course,  been  fruitless. 

"  At  last  I  entered  Paris — with  the  Cossacks.  To  me  this 
was  grief  on  grief.  On  seeing  the  Russians  in  France,  I 
quite  forgot  that  I  had  no  shoes  on  my  feet  nor  money  in  my 
pocket.  Yes,  monsieur,  my  clothes  were  in  tatters.  The 
evening  before  I  reached  Paris  I  was  obliged  to  bivouac  in  the 
woods  of  Claye.  The  chill  of  the  night  air  no  doubt  brought 
on  an  attack  of  some  nameless  complaint  which  seized  me  as 
I  was  crossing  the  Faubourg  Saint-Martin.  I  dropped  almost 
senseless  at  the  door  of  an  ironmonger's  shop.  When  I  re- 
covered I  was  in  a  bed  in  the  Hotel-Dieu.  There  I  stayed 
very  contentedly  for  about  a  month.  I  was  then  turned  out ; 
I  had  no  money,  but  I  was  well,  and  my  feet  were  on  the 
good  stones  of  Paris.  With  what  delight  and  haste  did  I 
make  my  way  to  the  Rue  du  Mont-Blanc,  where  ray  wife 
should  be  living  in  a  house  belonging  to  me  !  Bah  !  the  Rue 
du  Mont-Blanc  was  now  the  Rue  de  la  Chauss6e  d' Antin ;  I 
could  not  find  my  house ;  it  had  been  sold  and  pulled  down. 
Speculators  had  built  several  houses  over  my  gardens.  Not 
knowing  that  my  wife  had  married  M.  Ferraud,  I  could  obtain 
no  information. 

"  At  last  I  went  to  the  house  of  an  old  lawyer  who  had 
been  in  charge  of  my  affairs.  This  worthy  man  was  dead, 
after  selling  his  connections  to  a  younger  man.  This  gentle- 
man informed  me,  to  my  great  surprise,  of  the  administration 
of  my  estate,  the  settlement  of  the  moneys,  of  my  wife's 
marriage,  and  the  birth  of  her  two  children.  When  I  told 
him  that  I  was  Colonel  Chabert,  he  laughed  so  heartily  that  I 
left  him  without  saying  another  word.  My  detention  at 
Stuttgart  had  suggested  possibilities  of  Charenton,  and  I  de- 


260  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

termined  to  act  with  caution.  Then,  monsieur,  knowing 
where  my  wife  lived,  I  went  to  her  house,  my  heart  high  with 
hope.  Well,"  said  the  colonel,  with  a  gesture  of  concen- 
trated fury,  "  when  I  called  under  an  assumed  name  I  was  not 
admitted,  and  on  the  day  when  I  used  my  own  I  was  turned 
out  of  doors. 

**  To  see  the  Countess  come  home  from  a  ball  or  the  play 
in  the  early  morning,  I  have  sat  whole  nights  through,  crouch- 
ing close  to  the  wall  of  her  gateway.  My  eyes  pierced  the 
depths  of  the  carriage,  which  flashed  past  me  with  the  swift- 
ness of  lightning,  and  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  woman  who 
is  my  wife  and  no  longer  mine.  Oh,  from  that  day  I  have 
lived  for  vengeance  ! ' '  cried  the  old  man  in  a  hollow  voice, 
and  suddenly  standing  up  in  front  of  Derville.  "  She  knows 
that  I  am  alive ;  since  my  return  she  has  had  two  letters  writ- 
ten with  my  own  hand.  She  loves  me  no  more  ! — I — I  know 
not  whether  I  love  or  hate  her.  I  long  for  her  and  curse  her 
by  turns.  To  me  she  owes  all  her  fortune,  all  her  happiness  ; 
well,  she  has  not  sent  me  the  very  smallest  pittance.  Some- 
times I  do  not  know  what  will  become  of  me  !  " 

With  these  words  the  veteran  dropped  on  to  his  chair  again 
and  remained  motionless.  Derville  sat  in  silence,  studying 
his  client. 

"  It  is  a  serious  business,"  he  said  at  length,  mechanically. 
"  Even  granting  the  genuineness  of  the  documents  to  be  pro- 
cured from  Heilsberg,  it  is  not  proved  to  me  that  we  can  at 
once  win  our  case.  It  must  go  before  three  tribunals  in  suc- 
cession. I  must  think  such  a  matter  over  with  a  clear  head ; 
it  is  quite  exceptional." 

**  Oh,"  said  the  colonel,  coldly,  with  a  haughty  jerk  of  his 
head,  "if  I  fail,  I  can  die — but  not  alone." 

The  feeble  old  man  had  vanished.  The  eyes  now  were  those 
of  a  man  of  energy,  lighted  up  with  the  spark  of  desire  and 
revenge. 

"We  must  perhaps  compromise,"  said  the  lawyer. 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  261 

**  Compromise  !  "  echoed  Colonel  Chabert.  "  Am  I  dead, 
or  am  I  alive?  " 

"I  hope,  monsieur,"  the  attorney  went  on,  "  that  you  will 
follow  my  advice.  Your  cause  is  mine.  You  will  soon  per- 
ceive the  interest  I  take  in  your  situation,  almost  unexampled 
in  judicial  records.  For  the  moment  I  will  give  you  a  letter 
to  my  notary,  who  will  pay  you  to  your  order  fifty  francs 
every  ten  days.  It  would  be  unbecoming  for  you  to  come 
here  to  receive  alms.  If  you  are  Colonel  Chabert,  you  ought 
to  be  at  no  man's  mercy.  I  shall  regard  these  advances  as  a 
loan;  you  have  estates  to  recover;  you  are  rich." 

This  delicate  compassion  brought  tears  to  the  old  man's 
eyes.  Derville  rose  hastily,  for  it  was  perhaps  not  correct  for 
a  lawyer  to  show  emotion  ;  he  went  into  the  adjoining  room, 
and  came  back  with  an  unsealed  letter,  which  he  gave  to  the 
colonel.  When  the  poor  man  held  it  in  his  hand  he  felt 
through  the  paper  two  gold-pieces. 

"  Will  you  be  good  enough  to  describe  the  documents,  and 
tell  me  the  name  of  the  town,  and  in  what  kingdom?"  said 
the  lawyer. 

The  colonel  dictated  the  information,  and  verified  the 
spelling  of  the  names  of  places  ;  then  he  took  his  hat  in  one 
hand,  looked  at  Derville,  and  held  out  the  other — a  horny 
hand,  saying  with  much  simplicity — 

"  On  my  honor,  sir,  after  the  Emperor,  you  are  the  man 
to  whom  I  shall  owe  the  most.  You  are,  indeed,  a  splendid 
fellow!" 

The  attorney  clapped  his  hand  into  the  colonel's,  saw  him 
to  the  stairs,  and  held  a  light  for  him. 

"  Boucard,"  said  Derville  to  his  head  clerk,  "  I  have  just 
listened  to  a  tale  that  may  cost  me  five-and-twenty  louis.  If 
I  am  robbed,  I  shall  not  regret  the  money,  for  I  shall  have 
seen  the  most  consummate  actor  of  the  day." 

When  the  colonel  was  in  the  street  and  close  to  a  lamp,  he 
took  the  two  twenty-franc  pieces  out  of  the  letter  and  looked 


262  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

at  them  for  a  moment  under  the  light.     It  was  the  first  gold 
he  had  seen  for  nine  years. 

"  I  may  smoke  cigars !  "  he  said  to  himself. 

About  three  months  after  this  interview,  at  night,  in  Der- 
ville's  room,  the  notary  commissioned  to  advance  the  half- 
pay  on  Derville's  account  to  his  eccentric  client  came  to 
consult  the  attorney  on  a  serious  matter,  and  began  by  beg- 
ging him  to  refund  the  six  hundred  francs  that  the  old  soldier 
had  received. 

**  Are  you  amusing  yourself  with  pensioning  the  old 
army?"  said  the  notary,  laughing — a  young  man  named 
Crottat,  who  had  just  bought  up  the  office  in  which  he  had 
been  head  clerk,  his  chief  having  fled  in  consequence  of  a 
disastrous  bankruptcy. 

**  I  have  to  thank  you,  my  dear  sir,  for  reminding  me  of 
that  affair,"  replied  Derville,  "My  philanthropy  will  not 
carry  me  beyond  twenty-five  louis;  I  have,  I  fear,  already 
been  the  dupe  of  my  patriotism." 

As  Derville  finished  the  sentence,  he  saw  on  his  desk  the 
papers  his  head  clerk  had  laid  out  for  him.  His  eye  was 
struck  by  the  appearance  of  the  stamps — long,  square,  and 
triangular,  in  red  and  blue  ink,  which  distinguished  a  letter 
that  had  come  through  the  Prussian,  Austrian,  Bavarian,  and 
French  postoffices. 

**Ah,  ha!  "  said  he  with  a  laugh,  "here  is  the  last  act  of 
the  comedy;  now  we  shall  see  if  I  have  been  taken  in  !  " 

He  took  up  the  letter  and  opened  it ;  but  he  could  not 
read  it ;  it  was  written  in  German. 

"  Boucard,  go  yourself  and  have  this  letter  translated,  and 
bring  it  back  immediately,"  said  Derville,  half  opening  his 
study  door,  and  giving  the  letter  to  the  head  clerk. 

The  notary  at  Berlin,  to  whom  the  lawyer  had  written,  in- 
formed him  that  the  documents  he  had  been  requested  to 
forward  would  arrive  within  a  few  days  of  this  note  announc- 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  263 

ing  them.  They  were,  he  said,  all  perfectly  regular  and  duly 
witnessed,  and  legally  stamped  to  serve  as  evidence  in  law. 
He  also  informed  him  that  almost  all  the  witnesses  to  the 
facts  recorded  under  these  affidavits  were  still  to  be  found  at 
Eylau,  in  Prussia,  and  that  the  woman  to  whom  M.  le  Comte 
Chabert  owed  his  life  was  still  living  in  a  suburb  of  Heilsberg. 

"This  looks  like  business,"  cried  Derville,  when  Boucard 
had  given  him  the  substance  of  the  letter,  "  But  look  here, 
my  boy,"  he  went  on,  addressing  the  notary,  "I  shall  want 
some  information  which  ought  to  exist  in  your  office.  Was  it 
not  that  old  rascal  Roguin ?  " 

"We  will  say  that  unfortunate,  that  ill-used  Roguin," 
interrupted  Alexandre  Crottat  with  a  laugh. 

"Well,  was  it  not  that  ill-used  man  who  has  just  carried 
off  eiglit  hundred  thousand  francs  of  his  clients'  money,  and 
reduced  several  families  to  despair,  who  effected  the  settlement 
of  Chabert 's  estate  ?  I  fancy  I  have  seen  that  in  the  docu- 
ments in  our  case  of  Ferraud." 

"Yes,"  said  Crottat.  "It  was  when  I  was  third  clerk;  I 
copied  the  papers  and  studied  them  thoroughly.  Rose  Cha- 
potel,  wife  and  widow  of  Hyacinthe,  called  Chabert,  Count 
of  the  Empire,  grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  They 
had  married  without  settlement ;  thus  they  held  all  the  prop- 
erty in  common.  To  the  best  of  my  recollection,  the  per- 
sonalty was  about  six  hundred  thousand  francs.  Before  his 
marriage,  Comte  Chabert  had  made  a  will  in  favor  of  the 
hospitals  of  Paris,  by  which  he  left  them  one-quarter  of  the 
fortune  he  might  possess  at  the  time  of  his  decease,  the  state 
to  take  the  other  quarter.  The  will  was  contested,  there  was 
a  forced  sale,  and  then  a  division,  for  the  attorneys  went  at  a 
pace.  At  the  time  of  the  settlement  the  monster  who  was 
then  governing  France  handed  over  to  the  widow,  by  special 
decree,  the  portion  bequeathed  to  the  treasury." 

"So  that  Comte  Chabert's  personal  fortune  was  no  more 
than  three  hundred  thousand  francs?" 


264  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

"Consequently  so  it  was,  old  fellow!"  said  Crottat. 
**  You  lawyers  sometimes  are  very  clear-headed,  though  you 
are  accused  of  false  practices  in  pleading  for  one  side  or  the 
other." 

Colonel  Chabert,  whose  address  was  written  at  the  bottom 
of  the  first  receipt  he  had  given  the  notary,  was  lodging  in 
the  Faubourg  Saint-Marceau,  Rue  du  Petit-Banquier,  with  an 
old  quartermaster  of  the  Imperial  Guard,  now  a  cow-keeper, 
named  Vergniaud.  Having  reached  the  spot,  Derville  was 
obliged  to  go  on  foot  in  search  of  his  client,  for  his  coach- 
man declined  to  drive  along  an  unpaved  street,  where  the 
ruts  were  rather  too  deep  for  cab-wheels.  Looking  about 
him  on  all  sides,  the  lawyer  at  last  discovered  at  the  end  of 
the  street  nearest  to  the  boulevard,  between  two  walls  built  of 
stones  and  mud,  two  shabby  stone  gate-posts,  much  knocked 
about  by  carts,  in  spite  of  two  wooden  stumps  that  served  as 
blocks.  These  posts  supported  a  cross-beam  with  a  pent- 
house coping  of  tiles,  and  on  the  beam,  in  red  letters,  were 
the  words,  "Vergniaud,  dairyman."  To  the  right  of  this 
inscription  were  some  eggs,  to  the  left  a  cow,  all  painted  in 
white.  The  gate  was  open,  and  no  doubt  remained  open  all 
day.  Beyond  a  good-sized  yard  there  was  a  house  facing  the 
gate,  if  indeed  the  name  of  house  may  be  applied  to  one  of 
the  hovels  built  in  the  neighborhood  of  Paris,  which  are  like 
nothing  else,  not  even  the  most  wretched  dwellings  in  the 
country,  of  which  they  have  all  the  poverty  without  their 
poetry. 

Indeed,  in  the  midst  of  fields,  even  a  hovel  may  have  a 
certain  grace  derived  from  the  pure  air,  the  verdure,  the  open 
country — a  hill,  a  serpentine  road,  vineyards,  quick-set 
hedges,  moss-grown  thatch  and  rural  implements ;  but  pov- 
erty in  Paris  gains  dignity  only  by  horror.  Though  recently 
built,  this  house  seemed  ready  to  fall  into  ruins.  None  of  its 
materials  had  found  a  legitimate  use  ;  they  had  been  collected 
from  the  various  demolitions  which  are  going  on  every  day  in 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  265 

Paris.  On  a  shutter  made  of  the  boards  of  a  shop-sign  Der- 
ville  read  the  words,  "Fancy  Goods."  The  windows  were 
all  mismatched  and  grotesquely  placed.  The  ground  floor, 
which  seemed  to  be  the  habitable  part,  was  on  one  side  raised 
above  the  soil,  and  on  the  other  sunk  in  the  rising  ground. 
Between  the  gate  and  the  house  lay  a  puddle  full  of  stable 
litter,  into  which  flowed  the  rain-water  and  house-waste. 
The  back  wall  of  this  frail  construction,  which  seemed  rather 
more  solidly  built  than  the  rest,  supported  a  row  of  barred 
hutches,  where  rabbits  bred  their  numerous  families.  To  the 
right  of  the  gate  was  the  cow-house,  with  a  loft  above  for  fod- 
der ;  it  communicated  with  the  house  through  the  dairy.  To 
the  left  was  a  poultry-yard,  with  a  stable  and  pig-styes,  the 
roofs  finished,  like  that  of  the  house,  with  rough  deal  boards 
nailed  so  as  to  overlap,  and  shabbily  thatched  with  rushes. 

Like  most  of  the  places  where  the  elements  of  the  huge 
meal  daily  devoured  by  Paris  are  every  day  prepared,  the  yard 
Derville  now  entered  showed  traces  of  the  hurry  that  comes 
of  the  necessity  for  being  ready  at  a  fixed  hour.  The  large 
pot-bellied  tin  cans  in  which  milk  is  carrried,  and  the  little 
pots  for  cream,  were  flung  pell-mell  at  the  dairy  door,  with 
their  linen-covered  stoppers.  The  rags  that  were  used  to 
clean  them  fluttered  in  the  sunshine,  riddled  with  holes, 
hanging  to  strings  fastened  to  poles.  The  placid  horse,  of  a 
breed  known  only  to  milk-women,  had  gone  a  few  steps  from 
the  cart,  and  was  standing  in  front  of  the  stable,  the  door 
being  shut.  A  goat  was  munching  the  shoots  of  a  starved 
and  dusty  vine  that  clung  to  the  cracked  yellow  wall  of  the 
house.  A  cat,  squatting  on  the  cream  jars,  was  licking  them 
over.  The  fowls,  scared  by  Derville's  approach,  scuttered 
away  screaming,  and  the  watch-dog  barked. 

"And  the  man  who  decided  the  victory  at  Eylau  is  to  be 
found  here  !  ' '  said  Derville  to  himself,  as  his  eyes  took  in  at 
a  glance  the  general  effect  of  the  squalid  scene. 

The  house  had  been  left  in  charge  of  three  little  boys. 


266  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

One,  who  had  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  cart  loaded  with  hay, 
was  pitching  stones  into  the  chimney  of  a  neighboring  house, 
in  the  hope  that  they  might  fall  into  a  saucepan ;  another  was 
trying  to  get  a  pig  into  a  cart  by  the  back  board,  which  rested 
on  the  ground  ;  while  the  third,  hanging  on  in  front,  was 
waiting  till  the  pig  had  gotten  into  the  cart,  to  hoist  it  by 
making  the  whole  thing  tilt.  When  Derville  asked  them  if 
M.  Chabert  lived  there,  neither  of  them  replied,  but  all  three 
looked  at  him  with  a  sort  of  bright  stupidity,  if  I  may  com- 
bine these  two  words.  Derville  repeated  his  questions,  but 
without  success.  Provoked  by  the  saucy  cunning  of  these 
three  imps,  he  abused  them  with  the  sort  of  pleasantry  which 
young  men  think  they  have  a  right  to  address  to  little  boys, 
and  they  broke  the  silence  with  a  horse-laugh.  Then  Derville 
was  angry. 

The  colonel,  hearing  him,  now  came  out  of  a  little  low 
room,  close  to  the  dairy,  and  stood  on  the  threshold  of  his 
doorway  with  indescribable  military  coolness.  He  had  in 
his  mouth  a  very  finely  colored  pipe — a  technical  phrase  to  a 
smoker — a  humble,  short  clay  pipe  of  the  kind  called  "  brdle- 
gueule.'"  He  lifted  the  peak  of  a  dreadfully  greasy  cloth  cap, 
saw  Derville,  and  came  straight  across  the  midden  to  join  his 
benefactor  the  sooner,  calling  out  in  friendly  tones  to  the 
boys — 

"  Silence  in  the  ranks  !  " 

The  children  at  once  kept  a  respectful  silence,  which 
showed  the  power  the  old  soldier  had  over  them. 

"Why  did  you  not  write  me?"  he  said  to  Derville. 
"Go  along  by  the  cowhouse!  There — the  path  is  paved 
there,"  he  exclaimed,  seeing  the  lawyer's  hesitancy,  for  he 
did  not  wish  to  wet  his  feet  in  the  manure  heap. 

Jumping  from  one  dry  spot  to  another,  Derville  reached 
the  door  by  which  the  colonel  had  come  out.  Chabert  seemed 
but  ill  pleased  at  having  to  receive  him  in  the  bedroom  he 
occupied  ;  and,  in  fact,  Derville  found  but  one  chair  there. 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  267 

The  colonel's  bed  consisted  of  some  trusses  of  straw,  over 
which  his  hostess  had  spread  two  or  three  of  those  old  frag- 
ments of  carpet,  picked  up  heaven  knows  where,  which  milk- 
women  use  to  cover  the  seats  of  their  carts.  The  floor  was 
simply  the  trodden  earth.  The  walls,  sweating  saltpetre, 
green  with  mold,  and  full  of  cracks,  were  so  excessively 
damp  that  on  the  side  where  the  colonel's  bed  was  a  reed  mat 
had  been  nailed.  The  famous  box-coat  hung  on  a  nail.  Two 
pairs  of  old  boots  lay  in  a  corner.  There  was  not  a  sign  of 
linen.  On  the  worm-eaten  table  the  Bulletins  de  la  Gratide 
Artnie,  reprinted  by  Plancher,  lay  open,  and  seemed  to  be 
the  colonel's  reading ;  his  countenance  was  calm  and  serene 
in  the  midst  of  this  squalor.  His  visit  to  Derville  seemed  to 
have  altered  his  features ;  the  lawyer  perceived  in  them  traces 
of  a  happy  feeling,  a  particular  gleam  set  there  by  hope. 

"Does  the  smell  of  a  pipe  annoy  you?  "  he  said,  placing 
the  dilapidated  straw-bottom  chair  for  his  lawyer. 

"But,  colonel,  you  are  dreadfully  uncomfortable  here!" 
remarked  Derville. 

The  speech  was  wrung  from  Derville  by  the  distrust  natural 
to  lawyers,  and  the  deplorable  experience  which  they  derive 
early  in  life  from  the  appalling  and  obscure  tragedies  at  which 
they  look  on. 

**  Here,"  said  he  to  himself,  "  is  a  man  who  has  of  course 
spent  my  money  in  satisfying  a  trooper's  three  theological 
virtues — play,  wine,  and  women  !  " 

"  To  be  sure,  monsieur,  we  are  not  distinguished  for  luxury 

here.     It  is  a  camp  lodging,  tempered  by  friendship,  but " 

And  the  soldier  shot  a  deep  glance  at  the  man  of  law — "  I 
have  done  no  one  wrong,  I  have  never  turned  my  back  on 
anybody,  and  I  sleep  in  peace." 

Derville  reflected  that  there  would  be  some  want  of  deli- 
cacy in  asking  his  client  to  account  for  the  sums  of  money  he 
had  advanced,  so  he  merely  said — 

"  But  why  would  you  not  come  to  Paris,  where  you  might 


268  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

have  lived  as  cheaply  as  you  do  here,  but  where  you  would 
have  been  better  lodged?  " 

"Why,"  replied  the  colonel,  "the  good  folks  with  whom 
I  am  living  had  taken  me  in  and  fed  me  gratis  for  a  year. 
How  could  I  leave  them  just  when  I  had  a  little  money.  Be- 
sides, the  father  of  those  three  pickles  is  an  old  Egyptian ' ' 

"An  Egyptian  !  " 

"  We  give  that  name  to  the  troopers  who  came  back  from 
the  expedition  into  Egypt,  of  which  I  was  one.  Not  merely 
are  all  who  get  back  brothers ;  Vergniaud  was  in  my  regi- 
ment. We  have  shared  a  draught  of  water  in  the  desert ; 
and,  besides,  I  have  not  yet  finished  teaching  his  brats  to 
read." 

"  He  might  have  lodged  you  better  for  your  money,"  said 
Derville. 

"Bah!"  said  the  colonel,  "his  children  sleep  on  the 
straw  as  I  do.  He  and  his  wife  have  no  better  bed  \  they  are 
very  poor,  you  see.  They  have  taken  a  bigger  business  than 
they  can  manage.  But  if  I  recover  my  fortune How- 
ever, it  does  very  well." 

"  Colonel,  to-morrow  or  next  day  I  shall  receive  your 
papers  from  Heilsberg.  The  woman  who  dug  you  out  is  still 
alive !  " 

"Curse  the  money!  To  think  I  haven't  got  any!  "  he 
cried,  flinging  his  pipe  on  the  ground. 

Now,  a  well-colored  pipe  is  to  a  smoker  a  precious  pos- 
session ;  but  the  impulse  was  so  natural,  the  emotion  so  gen- 
erous, that  every  smoker,  and  the  excise  office  itself,  would 
have  pardoned  this  crime  of  treason  to  tobacco.  Perhaps  the 
angels  may  have  picked  up  the  pieces. 

"  Colonel,  it  is  an  exceedingly  complicated  business,"  said 
Derville  as  they  left  the  room  to  walk  up  and  down  in  the 
sunshine. 

"  To  me,"  said  the  soldier,  "  it  appears  exceedingly  simple. 
I  was  thought  to  be  dead,  and  here  I  am  !     Give  me  back  my 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  269 

wife  and  my  fortune ;  give  me  the  rank  of  general,  to  which  I 
have  a  right,  for  I  was  made  colonel  of  the  Imperial  Guard 
the  day  before  the  battle  of  Eylau." 

"  Things  are  not  done  so  in  the  legal  world,"  said  Derville. 
**  Listen  to  me.  You  are  Colonel  Chabert,  I  am  glad  to 
think  it ;  but  it  has  to  be  proved  judicially  to  persons  whose 
interest  it  will  be  to  deny  it.  Hence,  your  papers  will  be 
disputed.  That  contention  will  give  rise  to  ten  or  twelve 
preliminary  inquiries.  Every  question  will  be  sent  under  con- 
tradiction up  to  the  supreme  court,  and  give  rise  to  so  many 
costly  suits,  which  will  hang  on  for  a  long  time,  however 
eagerly  I  may  push  them.  Your  opponents  will  demand  an 
inquiry,  which  we  cannot  refuse,  and  which  may  necessitate 
the  sending  of  a  commission  of  investigation  to  Prussia.  But 
even  if  we  hope  for  the  best ;  supposing  that  justice  should  at 
once  recognize  you  as  Colonel  Chabert — can  we  know  how 
the  questions  will  be  settled  that  will  arise  out  of  the  very 
innocent  bigamy  committed  by  the  Comtesse  Ferraud? 

"  In  )-  ^ur  case,  the  point  of  law  is  unknown  to  the  code, 
and  can  only  be  decided  as  a  point  in  equity,  as  a  jury  de- 
cides in  the  delicate  cases  presented  by  the  social  eccentricities 
of  some  criminal  prosecutions.  Now,  you  had  no  children 
by  your  marriage ;  M.  le  Comte  Ferraud  has  two.  The  judges 
might  pronounce  against  the  marriage  where  the  family  ties 
are  weakest,  to  the  confirmation  of  that  where  they  are 
stronger,  since  it  was  contracted  in  perfect  good  faith. 
Would  you  be  in  a  very  becoming  moral  position  if  you  in- 
sisted, at  your  age  and  in  your  present  circumstances,  in 
resuming  your  rights  over  a  woman  who  no  longer  loves  you  ? 
You  will  have  both  your  wife  and  her  husband  against  you, 
two  important  persons  who  might  influence  the  bench.  Thus 
there  are  many  elements  which  would  prolong  the  case;  you 
will  have  time  to  grow  old  in  the  bitterest  regrets." 

"  And  my  fortune?  " 

"  Do  you  suppose  you  had  a  fine  fortune  ?  " 


270  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

"  Had  I  not  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year  ?  " 

"My  dear  colonel,  in  1799  you  made  a  will  before  your 
marriage,  leaving  one  quarter  of  your  property  to  hospitals." 

''That  is  true." 

"  Well,  when  you  were  reported  dead,  it  was  necessary  to 
make  a  valuation,  and  have  a  sale,  to  give  this  quarter  away. 
Your  wife  was  not  particular  about  honesty  to  the  poor.  The 
valuation,  in  which  she  no  doubt  took  care  not  to  include  the 
ready  money  or  jewelry,  or  too  much  of  the  plate,  and  in 
which  the  furniture  would  be  estimated  at  two-thirds  of  its 
actual  cost,  either  to  benefit  her  or  to  lighten  the  succession 
duty,  and  also  because  a  valuer  can  be  held  responsible  for 
the  declared  value — the  valuation  thus  made  stood  at  six  hun- 
dred thousand  francs.  Your  wife  had  a  right  to  half  for  her 
share.  Everything  was  sold  and  bought  in  by  her ;  she  got 
something  out  of  it  all,  and  the  hospitals  got  their  seventy- 
five  thousand  francs.  Then,  as  the  remainder  went  to  the 
state,  since  you  had  made  no  mention  of  your  wife  in  your 
will,  the  Emperor  restored  to  your  widow  by  decree  the  residue 
which  would  have  reverted  to  the  exchequer.  So,  now,  what 
can  you  claim  ?  Three  hundred  thousand  francs,  no  more, 
and  minus  the  costs." 

"And  you  call  that  justice  !  "  said  the  colonel,  in  dismay. 

"Why,  certainly " 

"  A  pretty  kind  of  justice  !  " 

"  So  it  is,  my  dear  colonel.  You  see  that  what  you  thought 
so  easy  is  not  so.  Madame  Ferraud  might  even  choose  to  keep 
the  sum  given  to  her  by  the  Emperor." 

"  But  she  was  not  a  widow.    The  decree  is  utterly  void " 

"I  agree  with  you.  But  every  case  can  get  a  hearing. 
Listen  to  me.  I  think  that  under  these  circumstances  a  com- 
promise would  be  both  for  her  and  for  you  the  best  solution 
of  the  question.  You  will  gain  by  it  a  more  considerable 
sum  than  you  can  prove  a  right  to." 

**  That  would  be  to  sell  my  wife !  " 


COLONEL    CHABEKT.  271 

"  With  twenty- four  thousand  francs  a  year  you  could  find  a 
woman  who,  in  the  position  in  which  you  are,  would  suit  you 
better  than  your  own  wife,  and  make  you  happier.  I  propose 
going  this  very  day  to  see  the  Comtesse  Ferraud  and  sound- 
ing the  ground ;  but  I  would  not  take  such  a  step  without 
giving  you  due  notice." 

"  Let  us  go  together." 

"  What,  just  as  you  are  ?  "  said  the  lawyer.  "  No,  my  dear 
colonel,  no.     You  might  lose  your  case  on  the  spot." 

**  Can  I  possibly  gain  it  ?  " 

"  On  every  count,"  replied  Derville.  "  But,  my  dear  Col- 
onel Chabert,  you  overlook  one  thing.  I  am  not  rich ;  the 
price  of  my  connection  is  not  wholly  paid  up.  If  the  bench 
should  allow  you  a  maintenance,  that  is  to  say,  a  sum  advanced 
on  your  prospects,  they  will  not  do  so  till  you  have  proved 
that  you  are  Comte  Chabert,  grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor." 

"To  be  sure,  I  am  a  grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor; 
I  had  forgotten  that,"  said  he  simply. 

"Well,  until  then,"  Derville  went  on,  "  will  you  not  have 
to  engage  pleaders,  to  have  documents  copied,  to  keep  the 
underlings  of  the  law  going,  and  to  support  yourself?  The 
expenses  of  the  preliminary  inquiries  will,  at  a  rough  guess, 
amount  to  ten  or  twelve  thousand  francs.  I  have  not  so  much 
to  lend  you — I  am  crushed  as  it  is  by  the  enormous  interest  I 
have  to  pay  on  the  money  I  borrowed  to  buy  my  business ; 
and  you?    Where  can  you  find  it  ? " 

Large  tears  gathered  in  the  poor  veteran's  faded  eyes,  and 
rolled  down  his  withered  cheeks.  This  outlook  of  difficulties 
discouraged  him.  The  social  and  the  legal  world  weighed  on 
his  breast  like  a  nightmare. 

"  I  will  go  to  the  foot  of  the  Vendome  column  !  "  he  cried. 
"  I  will  call  out :  *  I  am  Colonel  Chabert  who  rode  through 
the  Russian  square  at  Eylau ! '  The  statue — he — he  will 
know  me." 


272  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

"And  you  will  find  yourself  in  Charenton." 

At  this  terrible  name  the  soldier's  transports  collapsed. 

"  And  will  there  be  no  hope  for  me  at  the  ministry  of  war  ?  " 

"The  war  office!"  said  Derville.  "Well,  go  there;  but 
take  a  formal  legal  opinion  with  you,  nullifying  the  certificate 
of  your  death.  The  government  offices  would  be  only  too 
glad  if  they  could  annihilate  the  men  of  the  Empire." 

The  colonel  stood  for  a  while  speechless,  motionless,  his 
eyes  fixed,  but  seeing  nothing,  sunk  in  bottomless  despair. 
Military  justice  is  ready  and  swift ;  it  decides  with  Turk-like 
finality,  and  almost  always  rightly.  This  was  the  only  justice 
known  to  Chabert.  As  he  saw  the  labyrinth  of  difficulties 
into  which  he  must  plunge,  and  how  much  money  would  be 
required  for  the  journey,  the  poor  old  soldier  was  mortally  hit 
in  that  power  peculiar  to  man,  and  called  the  will.  He 
thought  it  would  be  impossible  to  live  as  party  to  a  lawsuit;  it 
seemed  a  thousand  times  simpler  to  remain  poor  and  a  beggar, 
or  to  enlist  as  a  trooper  if  any  regiment  would  pass  him. 

His  physical  and  mental  sufferings  had  already  impaired  his 
bodily  health  in  some  of  the  most  important  organs.  He 
was  on  the  verge  of  one  of  those  maladies  for  which  medicine 
has  no  name,  and  of  which  the  seat  is  in  some  degree  vari- 
able, like  the  nervous  system  itself,  the  part  most  frequently 
attacked  of  the  whole  human  machine — a  malady  which  may 
be  designated  as  the  heart-sickness  of  the  unfortunate.  How- 
ever serious  this  invisible  but  real  disorder  might  already  be, 
it  could  still  be  cured  by  a  happy  issue.  But  a  fresh  obstacle, 
an  unexpected  incident,  would  be  enough  to  wreck  this  vigor- 
ous constitution,  to  break  the  weakened  springs,  and  produce 
the  hesitancy,  the  aimless,  unfinished  movements,  which  physi- 
ologists know  well  in  men  undermined  by  grief. 

Derville,  detecting  in  his  client  the  symptoms  of  extreme 
dejection,  said  to  him  : 

"  Take  courage;  the  end  of  the  business  cannot  fail  to  be 
in  your  favor.     Only  consider  whether  you  can  give  me  your 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  273 

whole  confidence  and  blindly  accept  the  result  I  may  think 
best  for  your  interests." 

"  Do  what  you  will,"  said  Chabert. 

**  Yes,  but  you  surrender  yourself  to  me  like  a  man  march- 
ing to  his  death." 

*'  Must  I  not  be  left  to  live  without  a  position,  without  a 
name  ?     Is  that  endurable  ?  ' ' 

"  That  is  not  my  view  of  it,"  said  the  lawyer.  "  We  will 
try  a  friendly  suit,  to  annul  both  your  death  certificate  and 
your  marriage,  so  as  to  put  you  in  possession  of  your  rights. 
You  may  even,  by  Comte  Ferraud's  intervention,  have  your 
name  replaced  on  the  army-list  as  general,  and  no  doubt  you 
will  get  a  pension." 

"Well,  proceed  then,"  said  Chabert.  "I  put  myself 
entirely  in  your  hands." 

"I  will  send  you  a  power  of  attorney  to  sign,"  said  Der- 
ville.  "  Good-by.  Keep  up  your  courage.  If  you  want 
money,  rely  on  me." 

Chabert  warmly  wrung  the  lawyer's  hand,  and  remained 
standing  with  his  back  against  the  wall,  not  having  the 
energy  to  follow  him  excepting  with  his  eyes.  Like  all  men 
who  know  but  little  of  legal  matters,  he  was  frightened  by 
this  unforeseen  struggle. 

During  their  interview,  several  times,  the  figure  of  a  man 
posted  in  the  street  bad  come  forward  from  behind  one  of  the 
gate-pillars,  watching  for  Derville  to  depart,  and  he  now 
accosted  the  lawyer.  He  was  an  old  man,  wearing  a  blue 
waistcoat  and  a  white-pleated  kilt,  like  a  brewer's  ;  on  his 
head  was  an  otter-skin  cap.  His  face  was  tanned,  hollow- 
cheeked,  and  wrinkled,  but  ruddy  on  the  cheek-bones  by 
hard  work  and  exposure  to  the  open  air. 

"  Asking  your  pardon,  sir,"  said  he,  taking  Derville  by  the 
arm,   "if  I    take   the   liberty   of    speaking   to   you.     But   I 
fancied,  from  the  look  of  you,  that  you  were  a  friend  of  our 
ge/ieral." 
18 


274  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

"And  what  then?"  replied  Derville.  "What  concern 
have  you  with  him?  But  who  are  you?  "  said  the  cautious 
lawyer. 

"  I  am  Louis  Vergniaud,"  he  at  once  replied.  "I  have 
two  words  to  say  to  you." 

"  So  you  are  the  man  who  has  lodged  Comte  Chabert  as  I 
have  found  him  ?  " 

"  Asking  your  pardon,  sir,  he  has  the  best  room.  I  would 
have  given  him  mine  if  I  had  had  but  one ;  I  could  have 
slept  in  the  stable.  A  man  who  has  suffered  as  he  has,  who 
teaches  my  kids  to  read,  a  general,  an  Egyptian,  the  first 
lieutenant  I  ever  served  under— What  do  you  think  ?  Of  us 
all,  he  is  best  served.  I  shared  what  I  had  with  him.  Unfor- 
tunately, it  is  not  much  to  boast  of — bread,  milk,  eggs.  Well, 
well;  it's  neighbors'  fare,  sir.  And  he  is  heartily  welcome. 
But  he  has  hurt  our  feelings." 

"He?" 

"  Yes,  sir,  hurt  our  feelings.  To  be  plain  with  you,  I  have 
taken  a  larger  business  than  I  can  manage,  and  he  saw  it. 
Well,  it  worried  him  ;  he  must  needs  mind  the  horse  !    I  says 

to  him,   '  Really,  general '    '  Bah  ! '  says  he,  '  I  am  not 

going  to  eat  my  head  off  doing  nothing.  I  learned  to  rub  a 
horse  down  many  a  year  ago.'  I  had  some  bills  out  for  the 
purchase  money  of  my  dairy — a  fellow  named  Grados — Do 
you  know  him,  sir  ?  " 

"  But,  my  good  man,  I  have  not  time  to  listen  to  your 
story.     Only  tell  me  how  the  colonel  offended  you." 

"  He  hurt  our  feelings,  sir,  as  sure  as  my  name  is  Louis 
Vergniaud,  and  my  wife  cried  about  it.  He  heard  from  our 
neighbors  that  we  had  not  a  sou  to  begin  to  meet  the  bills 
with.  The  old  soldier,  as  he  is,  he  saved  up  all  you  gave 
him,  he  watched  for  the  bill  to  come  in,  and  he  paid  it. 
Such  a  trick !  While  my  wife  and  me,  we  knew  he  had  no 
tobacco,  poor  old  boy,  and  went  without.  Oh  !  now — yes, 
he  has  his  cigar  every  morning  !     I  would  sell  my  soul  for  it 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  275 

— No,  we  are  hurt.  "Well,  so  I  wanted  to  ask  you — for  he 
said  you  were  a  good  sort — to  lend  us  a  hundred  crowns  on 
the  stock,  so  that  we  may  get  him  some  clothes,  and  furnish 
his  room.  He  thought  he  was  getting  us  out  of  debt,  you 
see.  Well,  it's  just  the  other  way ;  the  old  man  is  running 
us  into  debt — and  hurt  our  feelings !  He  ought  not  to  have 
stolen  a  march  on  us  like  that.  And  we  his  friends,  too  ! 
On  my  word  as  an  honest  man,  as  sure  as  my  name  is  Louis 
Vergniaud,  I  would  sooner  sell  out  and  enlist  than  fail  to  pay 
you  back  your  money " 

Derville  looked  at  the  dairyman,  and  stepped  back  a  few 
paces  to  glance  at  the  house,  the  yard,  the  manure-pool,  the 
cow-house,  the  rabbits,  the  children. 

"  On  my  honor,  I  believe  it  is  characteristic  of  virtue  to 
have  nothing  to  do  with  riches !  "  thought  he. 

"All  right,  you  shall  have  your  hundred  crowns,  and 
more.  But  I  shall  not  give  them  to  you ;  the  colonel  will  be 
rich  enough  to  help,  and  I  will  not  deprive  him  of  the 
pleasure." 

"  And  will  that  be  soon  ?  " 

"Why,  yes." 

"  Ah,  dear  God  !  how  glad  my  wife  will  be  !  "  and  the 
cow-keeper's  tanned  face  seemed  to  expand. 

"  Now,"  said  Derville  to  himself,  as  he  got  into  his  cab 
again,  "  let  us  call  on  our  opponent.  We  must  not  show 
our  hand,  but  try  to  see  hers,  and  win  the  game  at  one 
stroke.  She  must  be  frightened.  She  is  a  woman.  Now 
what  frightens  women  most  ?  A  woman  is  afraid  of  nothing 
but " 

And  he  set  to  work  to  study  the  Countess'  position,  falling 
into  one  of  those  brown  studies  to  which  great  politicians 
give  themselves  up  when  concocting  their  own  plans  and 
trying  to  guess  the  secrets  of  a  hostile  cabinet.  Are  not 
attorneys,  in  a  way,  statesmen  in  charge  of  private  affairs? 

But  a  brief  survey  of  the  situation  in  which  the  Comte 


276  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

Ferraud  and  his  wife  now  found  themselves  is  necessary  for  a 
comprehension  of  the  lawyer's  cleverness. 

Monsieur  le  Comte  Ferraud  was  the  only  son  of  a  former 
councilor  in  the  old  Farlement  of  Paris,  who  had  emigrated 
during  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  so,  though  he  saved  his  head, 
lost  his  fortune.  He  came  back  under  the  Consulate,  and 
remained  persistently  faithful  to  the  cause  of  Louis  XVIII., 
in  whose  circle  his  father  had  moved  before  the  Revolution. 
He  thus  was  one  of  the  party  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain 
which  nobly  stood  out  against  Napoleon's  blandishments. 
The  reputation  for  capacity  gained  by  the  young  Count — then 
simply  called  Monsieur  Ferraud — made  him  the  object  of  the 
Emperor's  advances,  for  he  was  often  as  well  pleased  at  his 
conquests  among  the  aristocracy  as  at  gaining  a  battle.  The 
Count  was  promised  the  restitution  of  his  title,  of  such  of  his 
estates  as  had  not  been  sold,  and  he  was  shown  in  perspective " 
a  place  in  the  ministry  or  as  senator. 

The  Emperor  fell. 

At  the  time  of  Comte  Chabert's  death  M.  Ferraud  was  a 
young  man  of  six-and-twenty,  without  fortune,  of  pleasing 
appearance,  who  had  had  his  successes,  and  whom  the  Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain  had  adopted  as  doing  it  credit ;  but 
Madame  la  Comtesse  Chabert  had  managed  to  turn  her  share 
of  her  husband's  fortune  to  such  good  account  that,  after 
eighteen  months  of  widowhood,  she  had  about  forty  thousand 
francs  a  year.  Her  marriage  to  the  young  Count  was  not 
regarded  as  news  in  the  circles  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Ger- 
main. Napoleon,  approving  of  this  union,  which  carried  out 
his  idea  of  fusion,  restored  to  Madame  Chabert  the  money 
falling  to  the  exchequer  under  her  husband's  will ;  but  Napo- 
leon's hopes  were  again  disappointed.  Madame  Ferraud  was 
not  only  in  love  with  her  lover ;  she  had  also  been  fascinated 
by  the  notion  of  getting  into  the  haughty  society  which,  in 
spite  of  its  humiliation,  was  still  predominant  at  the  imperial 
court.     By  this  marriage  all  her  vanities  were  as  much  grat- 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  277 

ified  as  her  passions.  She  was  to  become  a  real  fine  lady. 
When  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  understood  that  the  young 
Count's  marriage  did  not  mean  desertion,  its  drawing-rooms 
were  thrown  open  to  his  wife. 

Then  came  the  Restoration.  The  Count's  political  ad- 
vancement was  not  rapid.  He  understood  the  exigencies  of 
the  situation  in  which  Louis  XVIII.  found  himself;  he  was 
one  of  the  inner  circle,  who  waited  till  the  "  Gulf  of  Revolu- 
tion should  be  closed" — for  this  phrase  of  the  King's,  at 
which  the  Liberals  laughed  so  heartily,  had  a  political  sense. 
The  order  quoted  in  the  lawyer's  long  preamble  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  story  had,  however,  put  him  in  possession  of  two 
tracts  of  forest,  and  of  an  estate  which  had  considerably  in- 
creased in  value  during  its  sequestration.  At  the  present 
moment,  though  Comte  Ferraud  was  a  councilor  of  state  and 
a  director-general,  he  regarded  his  position  as  merely  the  first 
step  of  his  political  career. 

Wholly  occupied  as  he  was  by  the  anxieties  of  consuming 
ambition,  he  had  attached  to  himself,  as  secretary,  a  ruined 
attorney  named  Delbecq,  a  more  than  clever  man,  versed  in 
all  the  resources  of  the  law,  to  whom  he  left  the  conduct  of 
his  private  affairs.  This  shrewd  practitioner  had  so  well  un- 
derstood his  position  with  the  Count  as  to  be  honest  in  his 
own  interest.  He  hoped  to  get  some  place  by  his  master's 
influence,  and  he  made  the  Count's  fortune  his  first  care. 
His  conduct  so  effectually  gave  the  lie  to  his  former  life  that 
he  was  regarded  as  a  slandered  man.  The  Countess,  with  the 
tact  and  shrewdness  of  which  most  women  have  a  share  more 
or  less,  understood  the  man's  motives,  watched  him  quietly, 
and  managed  him  so  well,  that  she  had  made  good  use  of 
him  for  the  augmentation  of  her  private  fortune.  She  had 
contrived  to  make  Delbecq  believe  that  she  ruled  her  hus- 
band, and  had  promised  to  get  him  appointed  president  of 
an  inferior  court  in  some  important  provincial  town,  if  he 
devoted  himself  entirely  to  her  interests. 


278  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

The  promise  of  a  place,  not  dependent  on  changes  of 
ministry,  which  would  allow  of  his  marrying  advantageously, 
and  rising  subsequently  to  a  high  political  position,  by  being 
chosen  deputy,  made  Delbecq  the  Countess'  abject  slave.  He 
had  never  allowed  her  to  miss  one  of  those  favorable  chances 
which  the  fluctuations  of  the  Bourse  and  the  increased  value 
of  property  afforded  to  clever  financiers  in  Paris  during  the 
first  three  years  after  the  Restoration.  He  had  trebled  his 
protectress*  capital,  and  all  the  more  easily  because  the 
Countess  had  no  scruples  as  to  the  means  which  might  make 
her  an  enormous  fortune  as  quickly  as  possible.  The  emolu- 
ments derived  by  the  Count  from  the  places  he  held  she  spent 
on  the  housekeeping,  so  as  to  reinvest  her  dividends  ;  and 
Delbecq  lent  himself  to  these  calculations  of  avarice  without 
trying  to  account  for  her  motives.  People  of  that  sort  never 
trouble  themselves  about  any  secrets  of  which  the  discovery 
is  not  necessary  to  their  own  interests.  And,  indeed,  he 
naturally  found  the  reason  in  the  thirst  for  money,  which 
taints  almost  every  Parisian  woman ;  and  as  a  fine  fortune 
was  needed  to  support  the  pretensions  of  Comte  Ferraud,  the 
secretary  sometimes  fancied  that  he  saw  in  the  Countess'  greed 
a  consequence  of  her  devotion  to  a  husband  with  whom  she 
still  was  in  love.  The  Countess  buried  the  secrets  of  her 
conduct  at  the  bottom  of  her  heart.  There  lay  the  secrets  of 
life  and  death  to  her,  there  lay  the  turning-point  of  this 
history. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year  1818  the  Restoration  was  set- 
tled on  an  apparently  immovable  foundation  ;  its  doctrines  of 
government,  as  understood  by  lofty  minds,  seemed  calculated 
to  bring  to  France  an  era  of  renewed  prosperity,  and  Parisian 
society  changed  its  aspect.  Madame  la  Comtessee  Ferraud 
found  that  by  chance  she  had  achieved  for  love  a  marriage 
that  had  brought  her  fortune  and  gratified  ambition.  Still 
young  and  handsome,  Madame  Ferraud  played  the  part  of  a 
woman  of  fashion,  and  lived  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  court. 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  279 

Rich  herself,  with  a  rich  husband  who  was  cried  up  as  one  of 
the  ablest  men  of  the  Royalist  party,  and,  as  a  friend  of  the 
King,  certain  to  be  made  minister,  she  belonged  to  the  aris- 
tocracy, and  shared  its  magnificence.  In  the  midst  of  this 
triumph  she  was  attacked  by  a  moral  canker.  There  are  feel- 
ings which  women  guess  in  spite  of  the  care  men  take  to  bury 
them.  On  the  first  return  of  the  King,  Comte  Ferraud  had 
begun  to  regret  his  marriage.  Colonel  Chabert's  widow  had 
not  been  the  means  of  allying  him  to  anybody ;  he  was  alone 
and  unsupported  in  steering  his  way  in  a  course  full  of  shoals 
and  beset  by  enemies.  Also,  perhaps,  when  he  came  to  judge 
his  wife  coolly,  he  may  have  discerned  in  her  certain  vices  of 
education  which  made  her  unfit  to  second  him  in  his  schemes. 
A  speech  he  made,  a  propos  of  Talleyrand's  marriage,  en- 
lightened the  Countess,  to  whom  it  proved  that  if  he  had  still 
been  a  free  man  she  would  never  have  been  Madame  Ferraud. 
What  woman  could  forgive  this  repentance?  Does  it  not 
include  the  germs  of  every  insult,  every  crime,  every  form  of 
repudiation  ?  But  what  a  wound  must  it  have  left  in  the 
Countess*  heart,  supposing  that  she  lived  in  the  dread  of  her 
first  husband's  return  ?  She  had  known  that  he  still  lived, 
and  she  had  ignored  him.  Then  during  the  time  when  she 
had  heard  no  more  of  him,  she  had  chosen  to  believe  that 
he  had  fallen  at  Waterloo  with  the  Imperial  Eagle,  at  the 
same  time  as  Boutin.  She  resolved,  nevertheless,  to  bind  the 
Count  to  her  by  the  strongest  of  all  ties,  by  a  chain  of  gold, 
and  vowed  to  be  so  rich  that  her  fortune  might  make  her 
second  marriage  indissoluble,  if  by  chance  Colonel  Chabert 
should  ever  reappear.  And  he  had  reappeared  ;  and  she  could 
not  explain  to  herself  why  the  struggle  she  dreaded  had  not 
already  begun.  Suffering,  sickness,  had  perhaps  delivered 
her  from  that  man.  Perhaps  he  was  half-mad,  and  Charenton 
might  yet  do  her  justice.  She  had  not  chosen  to  take  either 
Delbecq  or  the  police  into  her  confidnce,  for  fear  of  putting 
herself  in  their  power,  or  of  hastening  the  catastrophe.     There 


280  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

are  in  Paris  many  women  who,  like  the  Countess  Ferraud, 
live  with  an  unknown  moral  monster,  or  on  the  brink  of  an 
abyss ;  a  callus  forms  over  the  spot  that  tortures  them,  and 
they  can  still  laugh  and  enjoy  themselves. 

"  There  is  something  very  strange  in  Comte  Ferraud's  posi- 
tion," said  Derville  to  himself,  on  emerging  from  his  long 
reverie,  as  his  cab  stopped  at  the  door  of  the  Hotel  Ferraud 
in  the  Rue  de  Varennes.  "  How  is  it  that  he,  so  rich  as  he 
is,  and  such  a  favorite  with  the  King,  is  not  yet  a  peer  of 
France  ?  It  may,  to  be  sure,  be  true  that  the  King,  as  Mme. 
de  Grandlieu  was  telling  me,  desires  to  keep  up  the  value  of 
the  peerage  by  not  bestowing  it  right  and  left.  And,  after  all, 
the  son  of  a  councilor  of  the  Parlement  is  not  a  Crillon  nor  a 
Rohan.  A  Comte  Ferraud  can  only  get  into  the  Upper 
Chamber  surreptitiously.  But  if  his  marriage  were  annulled, 
could  he  not  get  the  dignity  of  some  old  peer  who  has  only 
daughters  transferred  to  himself,  to  the  King's  great  satisfac- 
tion ?  At  any  rate  this  will  be  a  good  bogey  to  put  forward 
and  frighten  the  Countess,"  thought  he  as  he  went  up  the 
steps. 

Derville  had  without  knowing  it  laid  his  finger  on  the 
hidden  wound,  put  his  hand  on  the  canker  that  consumed 
Madame  Ferraud. 

She  received  him  in  a  pretty, winter  dining-room,  where 
she  was  at  breakfast,  while  playing  with  a  monkey  tethered  by 
a  chain  to  a  little  pole  with  climbing-bars  of  iron.  The 
Countess  was  in  an  elegant  wrapper ;  the  curls  of  her  hair,  care- 
lessly pinned  up,  escaped  from  a  cap,  giving  her  an  arch  look. 
She  was  fresh  and  smiling.  Silver,  gilding,  and  mother-of- 
pearl  shone  on  the  table,  and  all  about  the  room  were  rare 
plants  growing  in  magnificent  china  jars.  As  he  saw  Colonel 
Chabert's  wife,  rich  with  his  spoil,  in  the  lap  of  luxury  and 
the  height  of  fashion,  while  lie,  poor  wretch,  was  living  with 
a  poor  dairymen  among  the  beasts,  the  lawyer  said  to  himself — 

♦*  The  moral  of  all  this  is  that  a  pretty  woman  will  never 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  281 

acknowledge  as  her  husband,  nor  even  as  a  lover,  a  man  in 
an  old  box-coat,  a  tow  wig,  and  boots  with  holes  in  them." 

A  mischievous  and  bitter  smile  expressed  the  feelings,  half- 
philosophical  and  half-satirical,  which  such  a  man  was 
certain  to  experience — a  man  well  situated  to  know  the  truth 
of  things  in  spite  of  the  lies  behind  which  most  families  in 
Paris  hide  their  mode  of  life. 

"  Good-morning,  Monsieur  Derville,"  said  she,  giving  the 
monkey  some  coffee  to  drink. 

''Madame,"  said  he,  a  little  sharply,  for  the  light  tone  in 
which  she  spoke  jarred  on  him,  "  I  have  come  to  speak  to  you 
on  a  very  serious  matter." 

"  I  am  io  grieved,  M.  le  Comte  is  away " 

"I,  madame,  am  delighted.  It  would  be  grievous  if  he 
could  be  present  at  our  interview.  Besides,  I  am  informed 
through  M.  Delbecq  that  you  like  to  manage  your  own  busi- 
ness without  troubling  tlie  Count." 

"Then  I  will  send  for  Delbecq,"  said  she. 

*'  He  would  be  of  no  use  to  you,  clever  as  he  is,"  replied 
Derville.  "  Listen  to  me,  madame  ;  one  word  will  be  enough 
to  make  you  grave.     Colonel  Chabert  is  alive  !  " 

"Is  it  by  telling  me  such  nonsense  as  that  that  you  think 
you  can  make  me  grave  ?  ' '  said  she  with  a  shout  of  laughter. 
But  she  was  suddenly  quelled  by  the  singular  penetration  of 
the  fixed  gaze  which  Derville  turned  on  her,  seeming  to  read 
to  the  bottom  of  her  soul. 

"  Madame,"  he  said,  with  cold  and  piercing  solemnity, 
"  you  know  not  the  extent  of  the  danger  which  threatens 
you.  I  need  say  nothing  of  the  indisputable  authenticity  of 
the  evidence  nor  of  the  fullness  of  proof  which  testifies  to  the 
identity  of  Comte  Chabert.  I  am  not,  as  you  know,  the  man 
to  take  up  a  bad  cause.  If  you  resist  our  proceedings  to  show 
that  the  certificate  of  death  was  false,  you  will  lose  that  first 
case,  and  that  matter  once  settled,  we  shall  gain  every  point." 

**  What,  then,  do  you  wish  to  discuss  with  me?" 


282  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

*'  Neither  the  colonel  nor  yourself.  Nor  need  I  allude  to 
the  briefs  which  clever  advocates  may  draw  up  when  armed 
with  the  curious  facts  of  this  case,  or  the  advantage  they  may 
derive  from  the  letters  you  received  from  your  first  husband 
before  your  marriage  to  your  second." 

"It  is  false,"  she  cried,  with  the  violence  of  a  spoilt 
woman.  "  I  never  had  a  letter  from  Comte  Chabert  j  and  if 
some  one  is  pretending  to  be  the  colonel,  it  is  some  swindler, 
some  returned  convict,  like  Coignard  perhaps.  It  makes  me 
shudder  only  to  think  of  it.  Can  the  colonel  rise  from  the 
dead,  monsieur?  Bonaparte  sent  an  aide-de-camp  to  inquire 
for  me  on  his  death,  and  to  this  day  I  draw  the  pension  of 
three  thousand  francs  granted  to  his  widow  by  the  govern- 
ment. I  have  been  perfectly  in  the  right  to  turn  away  all  the 
Chaberts  who  have  ever  come,  as  I  shall  all  who  may  come." 

"  Happily  we  are  alone,  madame.  We  can  tell  lies  at  our 
ease,"  said  he  coolly,  and  finding  it  amusing  to  lash  up  the 
Countess'  rage  so  as  to  lead  her  to  betray  herself,  by  tactics 
familiar  to  lawyers,  who  are  accustomed  to  keep  cool  when 
their  opponents  or  their  clients  are  in  a  passion.  "  Well, 
then,  we  must  fight  it  out,"  thought  he,  instantly  hitting  on 
a  plan  to  entrap  her  and  show  her  her  weakness. 

"The  proof  that  you  received  the  first  letter,  madame,  is 
that  it  contained  some  securities " 

"  Oh,  as  to  securities — that  it  certainly  did  not." 

"Then  you  received  the  letter,"  said  Derville,  smiling. 
"  You  are  caught,  madame,  in  the  first  snare  laid  for  you  by 
an  attorney,  and  you  fancy  you  could  fight  against  jus- 
tice  " 

The  Countess  colored,  and  then  turned  pale,  hiding  her 
face  in  her  hands.  Then  she  shook  off  her  shame,  and  re- 
torted with  the  natural  impertinence  of  such  women,  "  Since 
you  are  the  so-called  Chabert's  attorney,  be  so  good  as 
to " 

"  Madamt,"  said  Derville,  "  I  am  at  this  moment  as  much 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  283 

your  lawyer  as  I  am  Colonel  Chabert's.  Do  you  suppose  I 
want  to  lose  so  valuable  a  client  as  you  are  ?  But  you  are  not 
listening." 

"Nay,  speak  on,  monsieur,"  said  she  graciously. 

"  Your  fortune  came  to  you  from  M.  le  Comte  Chabert, 
and  you  cast  him  off.  Your  fortune  is  immense,  and  you 
leave  him  to  beg.  An  advocate  can  be  very  eloquent  when  a 
cause  is  eloquent  in  itself;  there  are  here  circumstances  which 
might  turn  public  opinion  strongly  against  you." 

••  But,  monsieur,"  said  the  Comtesse,  provoked  by  the 
way  in  which  Derville  turned  and  laid  her  on  the  gridiron, 
"  even  if  I  grant  that  your  M.  Chabert  is  living,  the  law  will 
uphold  my  second  marriage  on  account  of  the  children,  and 
I  shall  get  off  with  the  restitution  of  two  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  francs  to  M.  Chabert." 

"It  is  impossible  to  foresee  what  view  the  bench  may  take 
of  the  question.  If  on  one  side  we  have  a  mother  and  chil- 
dren, on  the  other  we  have  an  old  man  crushed  by  sorrows, 
made  old  by  your  refusals  to  know  him.  Where  is  he  to  find 
a  wife  ?  Can  the  judges  contravene  the  law?  Your  marriage 
with  Colonel  Chabert  has  priority  on  its  side  and  every  legal 
right.  But  if  you  appear  under  disgraceful  colors,  you  might 
have  an  unlooked-for  adversary.  That,  madame,  is  the 
danger  against  which  I  would  warn  you." 

*'  And  who  is  he?  " 

"Comte  Ferraud." 

"  Monsieur  Fearaud  has  too  great  an  affection  for  me,  too 
much  respect  for  the  mother  of  his  children " 

"Do  not  talk  of  such  absurd  things,"  interrupted  Der- 
ville, "  to  lawyers,  who  are  accustomed  to  read  hearts  to  the 
bottom.  At  this  instant  Monsieur  Ferraud  has  not  the  slight- 
est wish  to  annul  your  union,  and  I  am  quite  sure  that  he 
adores  you ;  but  if  some  one  were  to  tell  him  that  his  mar- 
riage is  void,  that  his  wife  will  be  called  before  the  bar  of 
public  opinion  as  a  criminal " 


284  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

"  He  would  defend  me,  monsieur." 

"No,  madame." 

"  What  reason  could  he  have  for  deserting  me,  monsieur?" 

*'  That  he  would  be  free  to  marry  the  only  daughter  of  a 
peer  of  France,  whose  title  would  be  conferred  on  him  by 
patent  from  the  King." 

The  Countess  turned  pale. 

"A  hit!  "  said  Derville  to  himself.  "I  have  you  on  the 
hip;  the  poor  colonel's  case  is  won.  Besides,  madame," 
he  went  on  aloud,  "  he  would  feel  all  the  less  remorse  because 
a  man  covered  with  glory — a  general,  count,  grand  cross  of 
the  Legion  of  Honor — is  not  such  a  bad  alternative  ;  and  if 
that  man  insisted  on  his  wife's  returning  to  him " 

"Enough,  enough,  monsieur!"  she  exclaimed.  "I  will 
never  have  any  lawyer  but  you.     What  is  to  be  done?" 

**  Compromise  !  "  said  Derville. 

"  Does  he  still  love  me  ?  "  she  said. 

*'  Well,  I  do  not  think  he  can  do  otherwise." 

The  Countess  raised  her  head  at  these  words.  A  flash  of 
hope  shone  in  her  eyes ;  she  thought  perhaps  that  she  could 
speculate  on  her  first  husband's  affection  to  gain  her  cause  by 
some  feminine  cunning. 

"I  shall  await  your  orders,  madame,  to  know  whether  I 
am  to  report  our  proceedings  to  you,  or  if  you  will  come  to 
my  office  to  agree  to  the  terms  of  a  compromise,"  said  Der- 
ville, taking  leave. 

A  week  after  Derville  had  paid  these  two  visits,  on  a  fine 
morning  in  June,  the  husband  and  wife,  who  had  been  sep- 
arated by  an  almost  supernatural  chance,  started  from  the 
opposite  ends  of  Paris  to  meet  in  the  office  of  the  lawyer  who 
was  engaged  by  both.  The  supplies  liberally  advanced  by 
Derville  to  Colonel  Chabert  had  enabled  him  to  dress  as 
suited  his  position  in  life,  and  the  dead  man  arrived  in  a  very 
decent  cab.     He  wore  a  wig  suited  to  his  face,  was  dressed  ia 


COLONEL  CHABERT.  285 

blue  cloth  with  white  linen,  and  wore  upon  his  waistcoat  the 
broad  red  ribbon  of  the  higher  grade  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 
In  resuming  the  habits  of  wealth  he  had  recovered  his  sol- 
dierly style.  He  held  himself  up ;  his  face,  grave  and  mys- 
terious-looking, reflected  his  happiness  and  all  his  hopes,  and 
seemed  to  have  acquired  youth  and  empasto,  to  borrow  a 
picturesque  word  from  the  painter's  art.  He  was  no  more 
like  the  Chabert  of  the  old  box-coat  than  a  cart-wheel  double 
sou  is  like  a  newly  coined  forty-franc  piece.  The  passer-by, 
only  to  see  him,  would  have  recognized  at  once  one  of  the 
noble  wrecks  of  our  old  army,  one  of  the  heroic  men  on 
whom  our  national  glory  is  reflected,  as  a  splinter  of  ice  on 
which  the  sun  shines  seems  to  reflect  every  beam.  These 
veterans  are  at  once  a  picture  and  a  book. 

When  the  Count  jumped  out  of  his  carriage  to  go  into 
Derville's  office,  he  did  it  as  lightly  as  a  young  man.  Hardly 
had  his  cab  moved  off",  when  a  smart  brougham  drove  up, 
splendid  with  coats-of-arms.  Madame  la  Comtesse  Ferraud 
stepped  out  in  a  dress  which,  though  simple,  was  cleverly 
designed  to  show  how  youthful  her  figure  was.  She  wore  a 
pretty  drawn  bonnet  lined  with  pink,  which  framed  her  face 
to  perfection,  softening  its  outlines  and  making  it  look 
younger. 

If  the  clients  were  rejuvenescent,  the  office  was  unaltered, 
and  presented  the  same  picture  as  that  described  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  story.  Simonnin  was  eating  his  breakfast,  his 
shoulder  leaning  against  the  window,  which  was  then  open, 
and  he  was  staring  up  at  the  blue  sky  in  the  opening  of  the 
courtyard  enclosed  by  four  gloomy  houses. 

"Ah,  ha  !  "  cried  the  little  clerk,  "  who  will  bet  an  even- 
ing at  the  play  that  Colonel  Chabert  is  a  general,  and  wears  a 
red  ribbon  ?  ' ' 

"  The  chief  is  a  great  magician,"  said  Godeschal. 

"  Then  there  is  no  trick  to  play  on  him  this  time?  "  asked 
Desroches. 


286  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

"  His  wife  has  taken  that  in  hand,  the  Comtesse  Ferraud," 
said  Boucard. 

"What  next?  "said  Godeschal.  "Is  Comtesse  Ferraud 
required  to  belong  to  two  men  ?  " 

"  Here  she  is,"  answered  Simonnin. 

At  this  moment  the  colonel  came  in  and  asked  for  Derville. 

"  He  is  at  home,  sir,"  said  Simonnin. 

"So  you  are  not  deaf,  you  young  rogue  !  "  said  Chabert, 
taking  the  gutter-jumper  by  the  ear  and  twisting  it,  to  the  de- 
light of  the  other  clerks,  who  began  to  laugh,  looking  at  the 
colonel  with  the  curious  attention  due  to  so  singular  a  per- 
sonage. 

Comte  Chabert  was  in  Derville's  private  room  at  the  mo- 
ment when  his  wife  came  in  by  the  door  of  the  office. 

"  I  say,  Boucard,  there  is  going  to  be  a  queer  scene  in  the 
chiefs  room.  There  is  a  woman  who  can  spend  her  days  alter- 
nately, the  odd  with  Comte  Ferraud,  and  the  even  with  Comte 
Chabert." 

"  And  in  leap  year,"  said  Godeschal,  "  they  must  settle  the 
^^w«/ between  them." 

"Silence,  gentlemen,  you  can  be  heard !"  said  Boucard 
severely.  "  I  never  was  in  an  office  where  there  was  so  much 
jesting  as  there  is  here  over  the  clients." 

Derville  had  made  the  colonel  retire  to  the  bedroom  when 
the  Countess  was  admitted. 

"Madame,"  he  said,  "not  knowing  whether  it  would  be 
agreeable  to  you  to  meet  M.  le  Comte  Chabert,  I  have  placed 
you  apart.     If,  however,  you  should  wish  it " 

"It  is  an  attention  for  which  I  am  obliged  to  you." 

"  I  have  drawn  up  the  memorandum  of  an  agreement  of 
which  you  and  M.  Chabert  can  discuss  the  conditions,  here 
and  now.  I  will  go  alternately  to  him  and  to  you,  and  explain 
your  views  respectively." 

"  Let  me  see,  monsieur,"  said  the  Countess  impatiently. 

Derville  read  aloud — 


COLONEL  CHABERT.  287 

"  '  Between  the  undersigned : 

** '  M.  Hyacinthe  Chabert,  Count,  Mar^chal  de  Camp  and 
Grand  Officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  living  in  Paris,  Rue 
du  Petit  Banquier,  on  the  one  part ; 

"  '  And  Madame  Rose  Chapotel,  wife  of  the  aforesaid  M. 
le  Comte  Chabert,  nee '  " 

"Pass  over  the  preliminaries,"  said  she.  "Come  to  the 
conditions." 

"Madame,"  said  the  lawyer,  "the  preamble  briefly  sets 
forth  the  position  in  which  you  stand  to  each  other.  Then, 
by  the  first  clause,  you  acknowledge,  in  the  presence  of  three 
witnesses,  of  whom  two  shall  be  notaries,  and  one  the  dairy- 
man with  whom  your  husband  has  been  lodging,  to  all  of 
whom  your  secret  is  known,  and  who  will  be  absolutely  silent 
— you  acknowledge,  I  say,  that  the  individual  designated  in 
the  documents  subjoined  to  the  deed,  and  whose  identity  is  to 
be  further  proved  by  an  act  of  recognition  prepared  by  your 
notary,  Alexandre  Crottat,  is  your  first  husband,  Comte  Cha- 
bert. By  the  second  clause,  Comte  Chabert,  to  secure  your 
happiness,  will  undertake  to  assert  his  rights  only  under  cer- 
tain circumstances  set  forth  in  the  deed.  And  these,"  said 
Derville,  in  a  parenthesis,  "are  none  other  than  a  failure  to 
carry  out  the  conditions  of  this  secret  agreement.  M.  Cha- 
bert, on  his  part,  agrees  to  accept  judgment  on  a  friendly  suit, 
by  which  his  certificate  of  death  shall  be  annulled  and  his 
marriage  dissolved." 

"  That  will  not  suit  me  in  the  least,"  said  the  Countess  with 
surprise.     "  I  will  be  a  party  to  no  suit ;  you  know  why." 

"  By  the  third  clause,"  Derville  went  on,  with  imperturbable 
coolness,  "  you  pledge  yourself  to  secure  to  Hyacinthe  Comte 
Chabert  an  income  of  twenty-four  thousand  francs  on  govern- 
ment stock  held  in  his  name,  to  revert  to  you  at  his  death " 

"  But  it  is  much  too  dear !  "  exclaimed  the  Countess. 

"  Can  you  compromise  the  matter  cheaper? " 

"Possibly." 


288  COLONEL   CHABERT, 

"  But  what  do  you  want,  madame?  " 

**  I  want — I  will  not  have  a  lawsuit.     I  want *' 

**  You  want  him  to  remain  dead?  "  said  Derville,  interrupt- 
ing her  hastily. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  Countess,  "if  twenty-four  thousand 
francs  a  year  are  necessary,  we  will  go  to  law " 

"Yes,  we  will  go  to  law,"  said  the  colonel  in  a  deep 
voice,  as  he  opened  the  door  and  stood  before  his  wife,  with 
one  hand  in  his  waistcoat  and  the  other  hanging  by  his  side — 
an  attitude  to  which  the  recollection  of  his  adventure  gave 
horrible  significance. 

"  It  is  he,"  said  the  Countess  to  herself. 

"  Too  dear  !  "  the  old  soldier  exclaimed.  "  I  have  given 
you  near  on  a  million,  and  you  are  cheapening  my  misfor- 
tunes. Very  well;  now  I  will  have  you — you  and  your 
fortune.  Our  goods  are  in  common,  our  marriage  is  not 
dissolved ' ' 

"  But  monsieur  is  not  Colonel  Chabert !  "  cried  the  Coun- 
tess, in  feigned  amazement. 

"  Indeed !  "  said  the  old  man,  in  a  tone  of  intense  irony. 
"  Do  you  want  proofs?    I  found  you  in  the  Palais  Royal " 

The  Countess  turned  pale.  Seeing  her  grow  white  under 
her  rouge,  the  old  soldier  paused,  touched  by  the  acute  suffer- 
ing he  was  inflicting  on  the  woman  he  had  once  so  ardently 
loved ;  but  she  shot  such  a  venomous  glance  at  him  that  he 
abruptly  went  on — 

"  You  were  with  La " 

"  Allow  me,  Monsieur  Derville,"  said  the  Countess  to  the 
lawyer.  "You  must  give  me  leave  to  retire.  I  did  not  come 
here  to  listen  to  such  dreadful  things." 

She  rose  and  went  out.  Derville  rushed  after  her ;  but  the 
Countess  had  taken  wings,  and  seemed  to  have  flown  from 
the  place. 

On  returning  to  his  private  room,  he  found  the  colonel  in 
a  towering  rage,  striding  up  and  down. 


COLONEL  CHABERT.  289 

**In  those  times  a  man  took  his  wife  where  he  chose,"  said 
he.  "  But  I  was  foolish,  and  chose  badly ;  I  trusted  to  ap- 
pearances.    She  has  no  heart." 

"  Well,  colonel,  was  I  not  right  to  beg  you  not  to  come  ? 
I  am  now  positive  of  your  identity ;  when  you  came  in,  the 
Countess  gave  a  little  start,  of  which  the  meaning  was  un- 
equivocal. But  you  have  lost  your  chances.  Your  wife  knows 
that  you  are  unrecognizable." 

"I  will  kill  her!" 

"  Madness  !  you  will  be  caught  and  executed  like  any 
common  wretch.  Besides,  you  might  miss  !  That  would  be 
unpardonable.  A  man  must  not  miss  his  shot  when  he  wants 
to  kill  his  wife.  Let  me  set  things  straight :  you  are  only  a 
big  child.  Go  now.  Take  care  of  yourself;  she  is  capable 
of  setting  some  trap  for  you  and  shutting  you  up  in  Charenton. 
I  will  notify  her  of  our  proceedings  to  protect  you  against  a 
surprise, ' ' 

The  unhappy  colonel  obeyed  his  young  benefactor,  and 
went  away,  stammering  apologies.  He  slowly  went  down  the 
dark  staircase,  lost  in  gloomy  thoughts,  and  crushed  perhaps 
by  the  blow  just  dealt  him — the  most  cruel  he  could  feel,  the 
thrust  that  could  most  deeply  pierce  his  heart — when  he  heard 
the  rustle  of  a  woman's  dress  on  the  lowest  landing,  and  his 
wife  stood  before  him. 

"  Come,  monsieur,"  said  she,  taking  his  arm  with  a  gesture 
like  those  familiar  to  him  of  old.  Her  action  and  the  accent 
of  her  voice,  which  had  recovered  its  graciousness,  were 
enough  to  allay  the  colonel's  wrath,  and  he  allowed  himself 
to  be  led  to  the  carriage. 

"  Well,  get  in  !  "  said  she,  when  the  footman  had  let  down 
the  step. 

And  as  if  by  magic,  he  found  himself  sitting  by  his  wife  in 
the  brougham. 

"  Where  to  ?  "  asked  the  servant. 

**  To  Groslay,"  said  she. 
19 


290  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

The  horses  started  at  once,  and  carried  them  all  across 
Paris. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  Countess,  in  a  tone  of  voice  which 
betrayed  one  of  those  emotions  which  are  rare  in  our  lives, 
and  which  agitate  every  part  of  our  being.  At  such  moments 
the  heart,  fibres,  nerves,  countenance,  soul,  and  body,  every- 
thing, every  pore  even,  feels  a  thrill.  Life  no  longer  seems 
to  be  within  us;  it  flows  out,  springs  forth,  is  communicated 
as  by  contagion,  transmitted  by  a  look,  a  tone  of  voice,  a 
gesture,  impressing  our  will  on  others.  The  old  soldier 
started  on  hearing  this  single  word,  this  first,  terrible  "  mon- 
sieur !  "  But  still  it  was  at  once  a  reproach  and  a  pardon,  a 
hope  and  a  despair,  a  question  and  an  answer.  This  word 
included  them  all ;  none  but  an  actress  could  have  thrown 
so  much  eloquence,  so  many  feelings  into  a  single  word. 
Truth  is  less  complete  in  its  utterance ;  it  does  not  put  every- 
thing on  the  outside ;  it  allows  us  to  see  what  is  within.  The 
colonel  was  filled  with  remorse  for  his  suspicions,  his  demands, 
and  his  anger ;  he  looked  down  not  to  betray  his  agitation. 

"Monsieur,"  repeated  she,  after  an  imperceptible  pause, 
**I  knew  you  at  once." 

"Rosine,"  said  the  old  soldier,  "those  words  contain  the 
only  balm  that  can  help  me  to  forget  my  misfortunes." 

Two  large  hot  tears  rolled  on  to  his  wife's  hands,  which  he 
pressed  to  show  his  deeply  rooted  affection. 

"Monsieur,"  she  went  on,  "could  you  not  have  guessed 
what  it  cost  me  to  appear  before  a  stranger  in  a  position  so 
false  as  mine  now  is?  If  I  have  to  blush  for  it,  at  least  let  it 
be  in  the  privacy  of  my  family.  Ought  not  such  a  secret  to 
remain  buried  in  our  hearts?  You  will  forgive  me,  I  hope, 
for  my  apparent  indifference  to  the  woes  of  a  Chabert  in  whose 
existence  I  could  not  possibly  believe.  I  received  your  let- 
ters," she  hastily  added,  seeing  in  his  face  the  objection  it 
expressed,  "  but  they  did  not  reach  me  till  thirteen  months 
after  the  battle  of  Eylau.      They  were  opened,   dirty,  the 


COLONEL   CIIABERT.  281 

writing  was  unrecognizable ;  and  after  obtaining  Napoleon's 
signature  to  my  second  marriage  contract,  I  could  not  help 
believing  that  some  clever  swindler  wanted  to  make  a  fool 
of  me.  Therefore,  to  avoid  disturbing  Monsieur  Ferraud's 
peace  of  mind  and  disrupting  family  ties,  I  was  obliged  to 
take  precautions  against  a  pretended  Chabert.  Was  I  not 
right,  I  ask  you  ?  ' ' 

"  Yes,  you  were  right.  It  was  I  who  was  the  idiot,  the 
owl,  the  dolt,  not  to  have  calculated  better  what  the  conse- 
quences of  such  a  position  might  be.  But  where  are  we 
going ;  "  he  asked,  seeing  that  they  had  reached  the  barrier 
of  La  Chapelle. 

"  To  my  country  house  near  Groslay,  in  the  valley  of 
Montmorency.  There,  monsieur,  we  will  consider  the  stej>s 
to  be  taken.  I  know  my  duties.  Though  I  am  yours  by  right, 
I  am  no  longer  yours  in  fact.  Can  you  wish  that  we  should 
become  the  talk  of  Paris?  We  need  not  inform  the  public 
of  a  situation,  which  for  me  has  its  ridiculous  side,  and  let 
us  preserve  our  dignity.  You  still  love  me,"  she  said,  with 
a  sad,  sweet  gaze  at  the  colonel,  "but  have  I  not  been  au- 
thorized to  form  other  ties  ?  In  so  strange  a  position,  a  secret 
voice  bids  me  trust  to  your  kindness,  which  is  so  well  known 
to  me.  Can  I  be  wrong  in  taking  you  as  the  sole  arbiter  of 
my  fate  ?  Be  at  once  judge  and  party  to  the  suit.  I  trust  in 
your  noble  character ;  you  will  be  generous  enough  to  forgive 
me  for  the  consequences  of  faults  committed  in  innocence. 
I  may  then  confess  to  you :  I  love  M.  Ferraud.  I  believed 
that  I  had  a  right  to  love  him.  I  do  not  blush  to  make  this 
confession  to  you  ;  even  if  it  offends  you,  it  does  not  disgrace 
us.  I  cannot  conceal  the  facts.  When  fate  made  me  a  widow, 
I  was  not  a  mother." 

The  colonel  with  a  wave  of  his  hand  bid  his  wife  be 
silent,  and  for  a  mile  and  a  half  they  sat  without  speaking  a 
single  word.  Chabert  could  fancy  he  saw  the  two  little  ones 
before  him. 


292  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

"Rosine." 

"Monsieur." 

"  The  dead  are  very  wrong  to  come  to  life  again." 

"  Oh,  monsieur,  no,  no  !  Do  not  think  me  ungrateful. 
Only,  you  find  me  a  lover,  a  mother,  while  you  left  me  merely 
a  wife.  Though  it  is  no  longer  in  my  power  to  love,  I  know 
how  much  I  owe  you,  and  I  can  still  offer  you  all  the  affection 
of  a  daughter." 

"Rosine,"  said  the  old  man  in  a  softened  tone,  "I  no 
longer  feel  any  resentment  against  you.  We  will  forget  every- 
thing," he  added,  with  one  of  those  smiles  which  always  re- 
flect a  noble  soul ;  "I  have  not  so  little  delicacy  as  to  de- 
mand the  mockery  of  love  from  a  wife  who  no  longer  loves 
me. 

The  Countess  gave  him  a  flashing  look  full  of  such  deep 
gratitude  that  poor  Chabert  would  have  been  glad  to  sink 
again  into  his  grave  at  Eylau.  Some  men  have  a  soul  strong 
enough  for  such  self-devotion,  of  which  the  whole  reward 
consists  in  the  assurance  that  they  have  made  the  person  they 
love  happy. 

"  My  dear  friend,  we  will  talk  all  this  over  later  when  our 
hearts  have  rested,"  said  the  Countess. 

The  conversation  turned  to  other  subjects,  for  it  was  im- 
possible to  dwell  very  long  on  this  one.  Though  the  couple 
came  back  again  and  again  to  their  singular  position,  either 
by  some  allusion  or  of  serious  purpose,  they  had  a  delightful 
drive,  recalling  the  events  of  their  former  life  together  and 
the  times  of  the  Empire.  The  Countess  knew  how  to  lend 
peculiar  charm  to  her  reminiscences,  and  gave  the  conversa- 
tion the  tinge  of  melancholy  that  was  needed  to  keep  it  seri- 
ous. She  revived  his  love  without  awakening  his  desires,  and 
allowed  her  first  husband  to  discern  the  mental  wealth  she 
had  acquired  while  trying  to  accustom  him  to  moderate  his 
pleasure  to  that  which  a  father  may  feel  in  the  society  of  a 
favorite  daughter. 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  293 

The  colonel  had  known  the  Countess  of  the  Empire ;  he 
found  her  a  Countess  of  the  Restoration. 

At  last,  by  a  cross-road,  they  arrived  at  the  entrance  to  a 
large  park  lying  in  the  little  valley  which  divides  the  heights 
of  Margency  from  the  pretty  village  of  Groslay.  The  Coun- 
tess had  there  a  delightful  house,  where  the  colonel  on  arriving 
found  everything  in  readiness  for  his  stay  there,  as  well  as  for 
his  wife's.  Misfortune  is  a  kind  of  talisman  whose  virtue  con- 
sists in  its  power  to  confirm  our  original  nature ;  in  some 
men  it  increases  their  distrust  and  malignancy,  just  as  it  im- 
proves the  goodness  of  those  who  have  a  kind  heart. 

Sorrow  had  made  the  colonel  even  more  helpful  and  good 
than  he  had  always  been,  and  he  could  understand  some 
secrets  of  womanly  distress  which  are  unrevealed  to  most  men. 
Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  his  loyal  trustfulness,  he  could  not 
help  saying  to  his  wife  : 

"  Then  you  felt  quite  sure  you  would  bring  me  here  ?  " 

"Yes,"  replied  she,  "  if  I  found  Colonel  Chabert  in  Der- 
ville's  client." 

The  appearance  of  truth  she  contrived  to  give  to  this  answer 
dissipated  the  slight  suspicions  which  the  colonel  was  ashamed 
to  have  felt.  For  three  days  the  Countess  was  quite  charm- 
ing to  her  first  husband.  By  tender  attentions  and  unfailing 
sweetness  she  seemed  anxious  to  wipe  out  the  memory  of  the 
sufferings  he  had  endured,  and  to  earn  forgiveness  for  the  woes 
which,  as  she  confessed,  she  had  innocently  caused  him.  She 
delighted  in  displaying  for  him  the  charms  she  knew  he  took 
pleasure  in,  while  at  the  same  time  she  assumed  a  kind  of 
melancholy ;  for  men  are  more  especially  accessible  to  certain 
ways,  certain  graces  of  the  heart  or  of  the  mind  which  they 
cannot  resist.  She  aimed  at  interesting  him  in  her  position, 
and  appealing  to  his  feelings  so  far  as  to  take  possession  of  his 
mind  and  control  him  despotically. 

Ready  for  anything  to  attain  her  ends,  she  did  not  yet 
know  what  she  was  to  do  with  this  man  ;  but  at  any  rate  she 


294  COLONEL   C HA  BERT. 

meant  to  annihilate  him  socially.  On  the  evening  of  the  third 
day  she  felt  that  in  spite  of  her  efforts  she  could  not  conceal 
her  uneasiness  as  to  the  results  of  her  manoeuvres.  To  give 
herself  a  minute's  reprieve  she  went  up  to  her  room,  sat  down 
before  her  writing-table,  and  laid  aside  the  mask  of  composure 
which  she  wore  in  Chabert's  presence,  like  an  actress  who, 
returning  to  her  dressing-room  after  a  fatiguing  fifth  act,  drops 
half-dead,  leaving  with  the  audience  an  image  of  herself  which 
she  no  longer  resembles.  She  proceeded  to  finish  a  letter  she 
had  begun  to  Delbecq,  whom  she  desired  to  go  in  her  name 
and  demand  of  Derville  the  deeds  relating  to  Colonel  Cha- 
bert,  to  copy  them,  and  to  come  to  her  at  once  to  Groslay. 
She  had  hardly  finished  when  she  heard  the  colonel's  step  in 
the  passage ;  uneasy  at  her  absence,  he  had  come  to  look  for 
her. 

**  Alas !  "  she  exclaimed,  "  I  wish  I  were  dead  !  My  posi- 
tion is  intolerable '  * 

"  Why,  what  is  the  matter  ?  "  asked  the  colonel. 

"Nothing,  nothing  !  "  she  replied. 

She  rose,  left  the  colonel,  and  went  down  to  speak  pri- 
vately to  her  maid,  whom  she  sent  off  to  Paris,  impressing  on 
her  that  she  was  herself  to  deliver  to  Delbecq  the  letter  just 
written,  and  to  bring  it  back  to  the  writer  as  soon  as  he  had 
read  it.  Then  the  Countess  went  out  to  sit  on  a  bench  suffi- 
ciently in  sight  for  the  colonel  to  join  her  as  soon  as  he  might 
choose.  The  colonel,  who  was  looking  for  her,  hastened  up 
and  sat  down  by  her. 

"  Rosine,"  said  he,  **  what  is  the  matter  with  you  ?  " 

She  did  not  answer. 

It  was  one  of  those  glorious,  calm  evenings  in  the  month 
of  June,  whose  secret  harmonies  infuse  such  sweetness  into 
the  sunset.  The  air  was  clear,  the  stillness  perfect,  so  that 
far  away  in  the  park  they  could  hear  the  voices  of  some  chil- 
dren, which  added  a  kind  of  melody  to  the  sublimity  of  the 
scene. 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  295 

**  You  do  not  answer  me?  "  the  colonel  said  to  his  wife. 

"My   husband "    said   the  Countess,  who   broke   oflF, 

started  a  little,  and  with  blush  stopped  to  ask  him,  *'  What 
am  I  to  say  when  I  speak  of  M,  Ferraud  ?  " 

"  Call  him  your  husband,  my  poor  child,"  replied  the 
colonel,  in  a  kind  voice.  "  Is  he  not  the  father  of  your  chil- 
dren?" 

"Well,  then,"  she  said,  "if  he  should  ask  what  I  came 
here  for,  if  he  finds  that  I  came  here,  alone,  with  a  stranger, 
what  am  I  to  say  to  him?  Listen,  monsieur,"  she  went  on, 
assuming  a  dignified  attitude,  "  decide  my  fate,  I  am  resigned 
to  anything " 

"My  dear,"  said  the  colonel,  taking  possession  of  his 
wife's  hands,  "  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  sacrifice  myself 
entirely  for  your  happiness " 

"That  is  impossible!"  she  exclaimed,  with  a  sudden 
spasmodic  movement.  "  Remember  that  you  would  have  to 
renounce  your  identity,  and  in  an  authenticated  form." 

"  What !  "  said  the  colonel.  "  Is  not  my  word  enough  for 
you?" 

The  word  "authenticated"  fell  on  the  old  man's  heart, 
and  roused  involuntary  distrust.  He  looked  at  his  wife  in  a 
way  that  made  her  color,  she  cast  down  her  eyes,  and  he 
feared  that  he  might  find  himself  compelled  to  despise  her. 
The  Countess  was  afraid  lest  she  had  scared  the  shy  modesty, 
the  stern  honesty,  of  a  man  whose  generous  temper  and  primi- 
tive virtues  were  known  to  her.  Though  these  feelings  had 
brought  the  clouds  to  their  brow,  they  immediately  recovered 
their  harmony.  This  was  the  way  of  it.  A  child's  cry  was 
heard  in  the  distance. 

"Jules,  leave  your  sister  in  peace,"  the  Countess  called 
out. 

"  What,  are  your  children  here  ?  "  said  Chabert. 

"Yes;  but  I  told  them  not  to  trouble  you." 

The  old  soldier  understood  the  delicacy,  the  womanly  tact 


296  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

of  so  gracious  a  precaution,  and  took  the  Countess'  hand  to 
kiss  it. 

"But  let  them  come,"  said  he. 

The  little  girl  ran  up  to  complain  of  her  brother. 

♦'  Mamma!  " 

"Mamma!" 

"It  was  Jules " 

"  It  was  her " 

Their  little  hands  were  held  out  to  their  mother,  and  the 
two  childish  voices  mingled ;  it  was  an  unexpected  and 
charming  picture. 

"Poor  little  things!"  cried  the  Countess,  no  longer  re- 
straining  her  tears,  "  I  shall  have  to  leave  them.  To  whom 
will  the  law  assign  them  ?  A  mother's  heart  cannot  be  di- 
vided; I  want  them,  I  want  them." 

"Are  you  making  mamma  cry?"  said  Jules,  looking 
fiercely  at  the  colonel. 

"  Silence,  Jules !  "  said  the  mother  in  a  decided  tone. 

The  two  children  stood  speechless,  examining  their  mother 
and  the  stranger  with  a  curiosity  which  it  is  impossible  to 
express  in  words. 

"Oh,  yes!"  she  cried.  "If  I  am  separated  from  the 
Count,  only  leave  me  my  children,  and  I  will  submit  to  any- 
thing  " 

This  was  the  decisive  speech  which  gained  all  that  she  had 
hoped  from  it. 

"Yes,"  exclaimed  the  colonel,  as  if  he  were  ending  a 
sentence  already  begun  in  his  mind,  "  I  must  return  under- 
ground again.     I  had  told  myself  so  already." 

"  Can  I  accept  such  a  sacrifice  ?  "  replied  his  wife.  "  If 
some  men  have  died  to  save  a  mistress'  honor,  they  gave 
their  life  but  once.  But  in  this  case  you  would  be  giving 
your  life  every  day.  No,  no.  It  is  impossible.  If  it  were 
only  your  life,  it  would  be  nothing ;  but  to  sign  a  declaration 
that  you  are  not  Colonel  Chabert,  to  acknowledge  yourself  an 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  297 

impostor,  to  sacrifice  your  honor,  and  live  a  lie  every  hour 
of  the  day !  Human  devotion  cannot  go  so  far.  Only 
think  !  No.  But  for  my  poor  children  I  would  have  fled 
with  you  by  this  time  to  the  other  end  of  the  world." 

"But,"  said  Chabert,  "can  I  not  live  here  in  your  little 
lodge  as  one  of  your  relations !  I  am  as  worn  out  as  a 
cracked  cannon  ;  I  want  nothing  but  a  little  tobacco  and  the 
Constitutionnel. ' ' 

The  Countess  melted  into  tears.  There  was  a  contest 
of  generosity  between  the  Comtesse  Ferraud  and  Colonel 
Chabert,  and  the  soldier  came  out  victorious.  One  evening, 
seeing  this  mother  with  her  children,  the  soldier  was  bewitched 
by  the  touching  grace  of  a  family  picture  in  the  country,  in 
the  shade  and  the  silence ;  he  made  a  resolution  to  remain 
dead,  and,  frightened  no  longer  at  the  authentication  of  a 
deed,  he  asked  what  he  was  to  do  to  secure  beyond  all  risk 
the  happiness  of  this  family. 

"  Do  exactly  as  you  like,"  said  the  Countess.  "  I  declare 
to  you  that  I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  this  affair.  I 
ought  not." 

Delbecq  had  arrived  some  days  before,  and,  in  obedience  to 
the  Countess'  verbal  instructions,  the  intendant  had  succeeded 
in  gaining  the  old  soldier's  confidence.  So  on  the  following 
morning  Colonel  Chabert  went  with  the  erewhile  attorney  to 
Saint-Leu-Taverny,  where  Delbecq  had  caused  the  attorney  to 
draw  up  an  affidavit  in  such  terms  that,  after  hearing  it  read, 
the  colonel  started  up  and  walked  out  of  the  office. 

"  Turf  and  thunder  !  What  a  fool  you  must  think  me ! 
Why,  I  should  make  myself  out  a  swindler  !  "  he  exclaimed. 

"Indeed,  monsieur,"  said  Delbecq,  "I  should  advise  you 
not  to  sign  in  haste.  In  your  place  I  would  get  at  least  thirty 
thousand  francs  a  year  out  of  the  bargain.  Madame  would 
pay  them." 

After  annihilating  this  scoundrel  emeritus  by  the  lightning 
look  of  an  honest  man  insulted,  the  colonel  rushed  off,  carried 


298  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

away  by  a  thousand  contrary  emotions.  He  was  suspicious, 
indignant,  and  calm  again  by  turns. 

Finally  he  made  his  way  back  into  the  park  of  Groslay  by 
a  gap  in  the  fence,  and  slowly  walked  on  to  sit  down  and 
rest,  and  meditate  at  his  ease,  in  a  little  room  under  a  gazebo, 
from  which  the  road  to  Saint-Leu  could  be  seen.  The  path 
being  strewn  with  the  yellowish  sand  which  is  used  instead 
of  river-gravel,  the  Countess,  who  was  sitting  in  the  upper 
room  of  this  little  summer-house,  did  not  hear  the  colonel's 
approach,  for  she  was  too  much  preoccupied  with  the  success 
of  her  business  to  pay  the  smallest  attention  to  the  slight 
noise  made  by  her  husband.  Nor  did  the  old  man  notice 
that  his  wife  was  in  the  room  over  him. 

"Well,  Monsieur  Delbecq,  has  he  signed  ?  "  the  Countess 
asked  her  secretary,  whom  she  saw  alone  on  the  road  beyond 
the  hedge  of  a  haha. 

**  No,  madame.  I  do  not  even  know  what  has  become  of 
our  man.     The  old  horse  reared." 

**  Then  we  shall  be  obliged  to  put  him  into  Charenton," 
said  she,  "  since  we  have  gotten  him." 

The  colonel,  who  recovered  the  elasticity  of  youth  to  leap 
the  haha,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  was  standing  in  front  of 
Delbecq,  on  whom  he  bestowed  the  two  finest  slaps  that  ever 
a  scoundrel's  cheeks  received. 

"  And  you  may  add  that  old  horses  can  also  kick !  "  the 
colonel  added. 

His  rage  spent,  the  colonel  no  longer  felt  vigorous  enough 
to  leap  the  ditch.  He  had  seen  the  truth  in  all  its  nakedness. 
The  Countess'  speech  and  Delbecq's  reply  had  revealed  the 
conspiracy  of  which  he  was  to  be  the  victim.  The  care  taken 
of  him  was  but  a  bait  to  entrap  him  in  a  snare.  That  speech 
was  like  a  drop  of  subtle  poison,  bringing  on  in  the  old 
soldier  a  return  of  all  his  sufferings,  physical  and  moral.  He 
came  back  to  the  summer-house  through  the  park  gate,  walk- 
ing slowly  like  a  broken  man. 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  299 

Then  for  him  there  was  to  be  neither  peace  nor  truce ! 
From  this  moment  he  must  begin  the  odious  warfare  with  this 
woman  of  which  Derville  had  spoken,  enter  on  a  life  of  liti- 
gation, feed  on  gall,  drink  every  morning  of  the  cup  of 
bitterness.  And  then — fearful  thought !  where  was  he  to  find 
the  money  needful  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  first  proceedings  ? 
He  felt  such  disgust  of  life,  that  if  there  had  been  any  water 
at  hand  he  would  have  thrown  himself  into  it ;  that  if  he 
had  had  a  pistol,  he  would  have  blown  out  his  brains.  Then 
he  relapsed  into  the  indecision  of  mind  which,  since  his  con- 
versation with  Derville  at  the  dairyman's,  had  changed  his 
character. 

At  last,  having  reached  the  kiosque,  he  went  up  to  the 
gazebo,  where  little  rose-windows  afforded  a  view  over  each 
lovely  landscape  of  the  valley,  and  where  he  found  his  wife 
seated  on  a  chair.  The  Countess  was  gazing  at  the  distance, 
and  preserved  a  calm  countenance,  showing  that  impenetrable 
face  which  women  can  assume  when  resolved  to  do  their 
worst.  She  wiped  her  eyes  as  if  she  had  been  weeping,  and 
played  absently  with  the  pink  ribbons  of  her  sash.  Never- 
theless, in  spite  of  her  apparent  assurance,  she  could  not  help 
shuddering  slightly  when  she  saw  before  her  her  venerable 
benefactor,  standing  with  folded  arms,  his  face  pale,  his 
brow  stern. 

**  Madame,"  he  said,  after  gazing  at  her  fixedly  for  a  mo- 
ment and  compelling  her  to  blush,  *'  Madame,  I  do  not 
curse  you,  I  scorn  you.  I  can  now  thank  the  chance  that  has 
divided  us.  I  do  not  feel  even  a  desire  for  revenge  \  I  no 
longer  love  you.  I  want  nothing  from  you.  Live  in  peace 
on  the  strength  of  my  word ;  it  is  worth  more  than  the  scrawl 
of  all  the  notaries  in  Paris.  I  will  never  assert  my  claim  to 
the  name  I  perhaps  have  made  illustrious.  I  am  henceforth 
but  a  poor  devil  named  Hyacinthe,  who  asks  no  more  than 
his  share  of  the  sunshine.     Farewell !  " 

The  Countess  threw  herself  at  his  feet;  she  would  have 


300  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

detained  him  by  taking  his  hands,  but  he  pushed  her  away 
with  disgust,  saying — 

"  Do  not  touch  me  !  " 

The  Countess'  expression  when  she  heard  her  husband's 
retreating  steps  is  quite  indescribable.  Then,  with  the  deep 
perspicacity  given  only  by  utter  villainy,  or  by  fierce  worldly 
selfishness,  she  knew  that  she  might  live  in  peace  on  the  word 
and  the  contempt  of  this  loyal  veteran. 

Chabert,  in  fact,  disappeared.  The  dairyman  failed  in 
business,  and  became  a  hackney-cab  driver.  The  colonel, 
perhaps,  took  up  some  similar  industry  for  a  time.  Perhaps, 
like  a  stone  flung  into  a  chasm,  he  went  falling  from  ledge  to 
ledge,  to  be  lost  in  the  mire  of  rags  that  seethes  through  the 
streets  of  Paris. 

Six  months  after  this  event,  Derville,  hearing  no  more  of 
Colonel  Chabert  or  the  Comtesse  Ferraud,  supposed  that  they 
had  no  doubt  come  to  a  compromise,  which  the  Countess,  out 
of  revenge,  had  had  arranged  by  some  other  lawyer.  So  one 
morning  he  added  up  the  sums  he  had  advanced  to  the  said 
Chabert  with  the  costs,  and  begged  the  Comtesse  Ferraud  to 
claim  from  M.  le  Comte  Chabert  the  amount  of  the  bill, 
assuming  that  she  would  know  where  to  find  her  first  husband. 

The  very  next  day  Comte  Ferraud's  man  of  business,  lately 
appointed  president  of  the  county  court  in  a  town  of  some 
importance,  wrote  this  distressing  note  to  Derville : 

"Monsiexjr: — Madame  la  Comtesse  Ferraud  desires  me  to 
inform  you  that  your  client  took  complete  advantage  of  your 
confidence,  and  that  the  individual  calling  himself  Comte 
Chabert  has  acknowledged  that  he  came  forward  under  false 
pretenses.     Yours,  etc.,  Delbecq." 

"  One  comes  across  people  who  are,  on  my  honor,  too  stupid 
by  half,"  cried  Derville.  *'  They  don't  deserve  to  be  Chris- 
tians !     Be  humane,  generous,  philanthropical,  and  a  lawyer, 


COLONEL    CHABERT.  301 

and  you  are  bound  to  be  cheated  !  There  is  a  piece  of  busi- 
ness that  will  cost  me  two  thousand-franc  notes !  " 

Some  time  after  receiving  this  letter,  Derville  went  to  the 
Palais  de  Justice  in  search  of  a  pleader  to  whom  he  wished 
to  speak,  and  who  was  employed  in  the  police  court.  As 
chance  would  have  it,  Derville  went  into  court  number  6  at 
the  moment  when  the  presiding  magistrate  was  sentencing  one 
Hyacinthe  to  two  months'  imprisonment  as  a  vagabond,  and 
subsequently  to  be  taken  to  the  Mendicity  House  of  Deten- 
tion, a  sentence  which,  by  magistrate's  law,  is  equivalent  to 
perpetual  imprisonment.  On  hearing  the  name  of  Hyacinthe, 
Derville  looked  at  the  delinquent,  sitting  between  two  gen- 
darmes on  the  bench  for  the  accused,  and  recognized  in  the 
condemned  man  his  false  Colonel  Chabert. 

The  old  soldier  was  placid,  motionless,  almost  absent-minded. 
In  spite  of  his  rags,  in  spite  of  the  misery  stamped  on  his 
countenance,  it  gave  evidence  of  noble  pride.  His  eye  had 
a  stoical  expression  which  no  magistrate  ought  to  have  mis- 
understood ;  but  as  soon  as  a  man  has  fallen  into  the  hands 
of  justice,  he  is  no  more  than  a  moral  entity,  a  matter  of  law 
or  of  fact,  just  as  to  statists  he  has  become  a  zero. 

When  the  veteran  was  taken  back  to  the  lock-up,  to  be 
removed  later  with  the  batch  of  vagabonds  at  that  moment  at 
the  bar,  Derville  availed  himself  of  the  privilege  accorded  to 
lawyers  of  going  wherever  they  please  in  the  courts,  and  fol- 
lowed him  to  the  lock-up,  where  he  stood  scrutinizing  him  for 
some  minutes,  as  well  as  the  curious  crew  of  beggars  among 
whom  he  found  himself.  The  passage  to  the  lock-up  at  that 
moment  afforded  one  of  those  spectacles  which,  unfortunately, 
neither  legislators,  nor  philanthropists,  nor  painters,  nor 
writers  come  to  study.  Like  all  the  laboratories  of  the  law, 
this  anteroom  is  a  dark  and  malodorous  place;  along  the 
walls  runs  a  wooden  seat,  blackened  by  the  constant  presence 
there  of  the  wretches  who  come  to  this  meeting-place  of  every 
form  of  social  squalor,  where  not  one  of  them  is  missing. 


aOS  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

A  poet  might  say  that  the  day  was  ashamed  to  light  up  this 
dreadful  sewer  through  which  so  much  misery  flows !  There 
is  not  a  spot  on  that  plank  where  some  crime  has  not  sat,  in 
embryo  or  matured ;  not  a  corner  where  a  man  has  never  stood 
who,  driven  to  despair  by  the  blight  which  justice  has  set 
upon  him  after  his  first  fault,  has  not  there  begun  a  career,  at 
the  end  of  which  looms  the  guillotine  or  the  pistol-snap  of 
the  suicide.  All  who  fall  on  the  pavement  of  Paris  rebound 
against  these  yellow-gray  walls,  on  which  a  philanthropist, 
who  was  not  a  speculator,  might  read  a  justification  of  the 
numerous  suicides  complained  of  by  hypocritical  writers  who 
are  incapable  of  taking  a  step  to  prevent  them — for  that  justi- 
fication is  written  in  that  anteroom,  like  a  preface  to  the 
dramas  of  the  morgue,  or  to  those  enacted  on  the  Place  de  la 
Grdve. 

At  this  moment  Colonel  Chabert  was  sitting  among  these 
men — men  with  coarse  faces,  clothed  in  the  horrible  livery  of 
misery,  and  silent  at  intervals,  or  talking  in  a  low  tone,  for 
three  gendarmes  on  duty  paced  to  and  fro,  their  sabres  clat- 
tering on  the  floor. 

"Do  you  recognize  me?"  said  Derville  to  the  old  man, 
standing  in  front  of  him. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Chabert,  rising. 

**  If  you  are  an  honest  man,"  Derville  went  on  in  an  under- 
tone, "  how  could  you  remain  in  my  debt  ?  " 

The  old  soldier  blushed  as  a  young  girl  might  when  accused 
by  her  mother  of  a  clandestine  love  affair. 

"  What !  Madame  Ferraud  has  not  paid  you?  "  cried  he  in 
a  loud  voice. 

"Paid  me?"  said  Derville.  "She  wrote  tome  that  you 
were  a  swindler." 

The  colonel  cast  up  his  eyes  in  a  sublime  impulse  of  horror 
and  imprecation,  as  if  to  call  heaven  to  witness  to  this  fresh 
subterfuge. 

"Monsieur,"  said  he,  in  a  voice  that  was  calm  by  sheer 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  303 

huskiness,  "get  the  gendarmes  to  allow  me  to  go  into  the 
lock-up,  and  I  will  sign  an  order  which  will  certainly  be 
honored." 

At  a  word  from  Derville  to  the  sergeant  he  was  allowed  to 
take  his  client  into  the  room,  where  Hyacinthe  wrote  a  few 
lines,  and  addressed  them  to  the  Comtesse  Ferraud. 

"  Send  her  that,"  said  the  soldier,  "  and  you  will  be  paid 
your  costs  and  the  money  you  advanced.  Believe  me,  mon- 
sieur, if  I  have  not  shown  you  the  gratitude  I  owe  you  for 
your  kind  offices,  it  is  not  the  less  there,"  and  he  laid  his 
hand  on  his  heart.  "Yes,  it  is  there,  deep  and  sincere. 
But  what  can  the  unfortunate  do?  They  live,  and  that  is  all." 

"  What !  "  said  Derville.  **  Did  you  not  stipulate  for  an 
allowance?" 

"  Do  not  speak  of  it !  "  cried  the  old  man.  "You  cannot 
conceive  how  deep  my  contempt  is  for  the  outside  life  to 
which  most  men  cling.  I  was  suddenly  attacked  by  a  sick- 
ness— disgust  of  humanity.  When  I  think  that  Napoleon  is 
at  Saint  Helena,  everything  on  earth  is  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence to  me.  I  can  no  longer  be  a  soldier ;  that  is  my  only 
real  grief.  After  all,"  he  added  with  a  gesture  of  childish 
simplicity,  "it  is  better  to  enjoy  luxury  of  feeling  than  of 
dress.     For  my  part,  I  fear  nobody's  contempt." 

And  the  colonel  sat  down  on  his  bench  again. 

Derville  went  away.  On  returning  to  his  office,  he  sent 
Godeschal,  at  that  time  his  second  clerk,  to  the  Comtesse 
Ferraud,  who,  on  reading  the  note,  at  once  paid  the  sum  due 
to  Comte  Chabert's  lawyer. 

In  1840,  towards  the  end  of  June,  Godeschal,  now  himself 
an  attorney,  went  to  Ris  with  Derville,  to  whom  he  had  suc- 
ceeded. When  they  reached  the  avenue  leading  from  the 
high-road  to  Bicetre,  they  saw,  under  one  of  the  elm-trees  by 
the  wayside,  one  of  those  old,  broken,  and  hoary  paupers  who 
have  earned  the  marshal's  staff  among  beggars  by  living  on  at 


304  COLONEL    CHABERT. 

Bic&tre  as  poor  women  live  on  at  La  Salpdtri^re.  This  man, 
one  of  the  two  thousand  poor  creatures  who  are  lodged  in  the 
infirmary  for  the  aged,  was  seated  on  a  corner-stone,  and 
seemed  to  have  concentrated  all  his  intelligence  on  an  opera- 
tion well  known  to  these  pensioners,  which  consists  in  drying 
their  snuify  pocket-handkerchiefs  in  the  sun,  perhaps  to  save 
washing  them.  This  old  man  had  an  attractive  countenance. 
He  was  dressed  in  the  reddish  cloth  wrapper-coat  which  the 
workhouse  affords  to  its  inmates,  a  sort  of  horrible  livery. 

**I  say,  Derville,"  said  Godeschal  to  his  traveling  com- 
panion, "  look  at  that  old  fellow.  Isn't  he  like  those  gro- 
tesque carved  figures  we  get  from  Germany  ?  And  it  is  alive, 
perhaps  it  is  happy." 

Derville  looked  at  the  poor  man  through  his  eyeglass,  and 
with  a  little  exclamation  of  surprise  he  said  : 

"That  old  man,  my  dear  fellow,  is  a  whole  poem,  or,  as 
the  romantics  say,  a  drama.  Did  you  ever  meet  the  Com- 
tesse  Ferraud  ? ' ' 

"Yes;  she  is  a  clever  woman,  and  agreeable;  but  rather 
too  pious,"  said  Godeschal. 

"That  old  Bicetre  pauper  is  her  lawful  husband,  Comte 
Chabert,  the  old  colonel.  She  has  had  him  sent  here,  no 
doubt.  And  if  he  is  in  this  workhouse  instead  of  living  in  a 
mansion,  it  is  solely  because  he  reminded  the  pretty  Countess 
that  he  had  taken  her,  like  a  hackney  cab,  on  the  street.  I 
can  remember  now  the  tiger's  glare  she  shot  at  him  at  that 
moment." 

This  opening  having  excited  Godeschal's  curiosity,  Der- 
ville related  the  story  here  told. 

Two  days  later,  on  Monday  morning,  as  they  returned  to 
Paris,  the  two  friends  looked  again  at  Bic6tre,  and  Derville 
proposed  that  they  should  call  on  Colonel  Chabert.  Half- 
way up  the  avenue  they  found  the  old  man  sitting  on  the 
trunk  of  a  felled  tree. 

"  Good-morning,  Colonel  Chabert,"  said  Derville. 


COLONEL   CHABERT.  965 

"Not  Chabert !  not  Chabert !  My  name  is  Hyacinthe," 
replied  the  veteran.  "  I  am  no  longer  a  man,  I  am  No.  164, 
Room  7,"  he  added,  looking  at  Derville  with  timid  anxiety, 
the  fear  of  an  old  man  and  a  child.  "Are  you  going  to  visit 
the  man  condemned  to  death  ?  "  he  asked  after  a  moment's 
silence.     "  He  is  not  married  !     He  is  very  lucky  !  " 

"  Poor  fellow  "  said  Godeschal.  "  Would  you  like  some- 
thing to  buy  snuff?  " 

With  all  the  simplicity  of  a  street  Arab,  the  colonel  eagerly 
held  out  his  hand  to  the  two  strangers,  who  each  gave  him  a 
twenty-franc  piece;  he  thanked  them  with  a  puzzled  look, 
saying : 

"  Brave  troopers  !  " 

He  ported  arms,  pretended  to  take  aim  at  them,  and 
shouted  with  a  smile  : 

"Fire!  both  arms!  Vwe  Napoleon !^^  And  he  drew  a 
flourish  in  the  air  with  his  stick. 

"The  nature  of  his  wound  has  no  doubt  made  him  child- 
ish," said  Derville. 

"  Childish  !  he  ?  "  said  another  old  pauper,  who  was  look- 
ing on.  "  Why,  there  are  days  when  you  had  better  not 
tread  on  his  corns.  He  is  an  old  rogue,  full  of  philosophy 
and  imagination.  But  to-day,  what  can  you  expect !  He 
has  had  his  Monday  treat.  He  was  here,  monsieur,  so  long 
ago  as  1820.  At  that  time  a  Prussian  officer,  whose  chaise 
was  crawling  up  the  hill  of  Villejuif,  came  by  on  foot.  We 
two  were  together,  Hyacinthe  and  I,  by  the  roadside.  The 
officer,  as  he  walked,  was  talking  to  another,  a  Russian,  or 
some  animal  of  the  same  species,  and  when  the  Prussian  saw 
the  old  boy,  just  to  make  fun,  he  said  to  him,  '  Here  is  an 
old  cavalry  man  who  must  have  been  at  Rossbach.'  *I  was 
too  young  to  be  there,'  said  Hyacinthe.  'But  I  was  at 
Jena.'  And  the  Prussian  made  off  pretty  quick,  without  ask- 
ing any  more  questions." 

"What  a  destiny!  "  exclaimed  Derville.  "Taken  out  of 
20 


306  COLONEL   CHABERT. 

the  Foundling  Hospital  to  die  in  the  Infirmary  for  the  Aged, 
after  helping  Napoleon  between  whiles  to  conquer  Egypt  and* 
Europe.  Do  you  know,  my  dear  fellow,"  Derville  went  on 
after  a  pause,  "  there  are  in  modern  society  three  men  who 
can  never  think  well  of  the  world — the  priest,  the  doctor,  and 
the  man  of  law?  And  they  wear  black  robes,  perhaps  be- 
cause they  are  in  mourning  for  every  virtue  and  every  illu- 
sion. The  most  hapless  of  the  three  is  the  lawyer.  When  a 
man  comes  in  search  of  the  priest,  he  is  prompted  by  repent- 
ance, by  remorse,  by  beliefs  which  make  him  interesting, 
which  elevate  him  and  comfort  the  soul  of  the  intercessor 
whose  task  will  bring  him  a  sort  of  gladness ;  he  purifies,  re- 
pairs, and  reconciles.  But  we  lawyers,  we  see  the  same  evil 
feelings  repeated  again  and  again,  nothing  can  correct  them; 
our  offices  are  sewers  which  can  never  be  cleansed. 

**  How  many  things  have  I  learned  in  the  excercise  of  my 
profession  !  I  have  seen  a  father  die  in  a  garret,  deserted  by 
two  daughters,  to  whom  he  had  given  forty  thousand  francs  a 
year !  I  have  known  wills  burnt ;  I  have  seen  mothers  rob- 
bing their  children,  wives  killing  their  husbands,  and  work- 
ing on  the  love  they  could  inspire  to  make  the  men  idiotic  or 
mad,  that  they  might  live  in  peace  with  a  lover.  I  have  seen 
women  teaching  the  child  of  their  marriage  such  tastes  as 
must  bring  it  to  the  grave  in  order  to  benefit  the  child  of  an 
illicit  affection.  I  could  not  tell  you  all  that  I  have  seen,  for 
I  have  seen  crimes  against  which  justice  is  impotent.  In 
short,  all  the  horrors  that  romancers  suppose  they  have  in- 
vented are  still  below  the  truth.  You  will  know  something 
of  these  pretty  things ;  as  for  me,  I  am  going  to  live  in  the 
country  with  my  wife.     I  have  a  horror  of  Paris." 

**I  have  seen  plenty  of  them  already  in  Desroches'  office," 
replied  Godeschal. 

Paris,  February-March,  1832. 


THE  VENDETTA. 

Dedicated  to  Puttinati,  Sculptor  at  Milan. 

In  the  year  1800,  towards  the  end  of  October,  a  stranger, 
having  with  him  a  woman  and  a  little  girl,  made  his  appear- 
ance in  front  of  the  Tuileries  Palace,  and  stood  for  some  little 
time  close  to  the  ruins  of  a  house,  then  recently  pulled  down, 
on  the  spot  where  the  wing  is  still  unfinished  which  was  in- 
tended to  join  Catherine  de  Medici's  Palace  to  the  Louvre 
built  by  the  Valois.  There  he  stood,  his  arms  folded,  his 
head  bent,  raising  it  now  and  again  to  look  at  the  Consul's 
Palace,  or  at  his  wife,  who  sat  on  a  stone  by  his  side. 

Though  the  stranger  seemed  to  think  only  of  the  little  girl 
of  nine  or  ten,  whose  black  hair  was  a  plaything  in  his  fingers, 
the  woman  lost  none  of  the  glances  shot  at  her  by  her  compan- 
ion. A  common  feeling,  other  than  love,  united  these  two 
beings,  and  a  common  thought  animated  their  thoughts  and 
their  actions.     Misery  is  perhaps  the  strongest  of  all  bonds. 

The  man  had  one  of  those  broad,  solemn-looking  heads, 
with  a  mass  of  hair,  of  which  so  many  examples  have  been 
perpetuated  by  the  Carracci.  Among  the  thick  black  locks 
were  many  white  hairs.  His  features,  though  fine  and  proud, 
had  a  set  hardness  which  spoiled  them.  In  spite  of  his  power- 
ful and  upright  frame,  he  seemed  to  be  more  than  sixty  years 
of  age.  His  clothes,  which  were  dilapidated,  betrayed  his 
foreign  origin. 

The  woman's  face,  formerly  handsome,  but  now  faded,  bore 
a  stamp  of  deep  melancholy,  though,  when  her  husband  looked 
at  her,  she  forced  herself  to  smile,  and  affected  a  calm  expres- 
sion. The  little  girl  was  standing,  in  spite  of  the  fatigue  that 
was  written  on  her  small  sunburnt  face.  She  had  Italian  feat- 
ures, large  black  eyes  under  well-arched  eyebrows,  a  native 

(307) 


808  THE   VENDETTA. 

dignity  and  genuine  grace.  More  than  one  passer-by  was 
touched  by  the  mere  sight  of  this  group,  for  the  persons  com- 
posing it  made  no  effort  to  disguise  a  despair  evidently  as 
deep  as  the  expression  of  it  was  simple  ;  but  the  spring  of  the 
transient  kindliness  which  distinguishes  the  Parisian  is  quickly 
dried  up.  As  soon  as  the  stranger  perceived  that  he  was  the 
object  of  some  idler's  attention,  he  stared  at  him  so  fiercely 
that  the  most  intrepid  lounger  hastened  his  step,  as  though  he 
had  trodden  on  a  viper. 

After  remaining  there  a  long  time  undecided,  the  tall  man 
suddenly  passed  his  hand  across  his  brow,  driving  away,  so  to 
speak,  the  thoughts  that  had  furrowed  it  with  wrinkles,  and 
made  up  his  mind  no  doubt  to  some  desperate  determination. 
Casting  a  piercing  look  at  his  wife  and  daughter,  he  drew  out 
of  his  jerkin  a  long  dagger,  held  it  out  to  the  woman,  and 
said  in  Italian,  "  I  am  going  to  see  whether  the  Bonapartes 
remember  us." 

He  walked  on,  with  a  slow,  confident  step,  towards  the  en- 
trance to  the  palace,  where,  of  course,  he  was  checked  by  a 
soldier  on  guard,  with  whom  there  could  be  no  long  discus- 
sion. Seeing  that  the  stranger  was  obstinate,  the  sentry 
pointed  his  bayonet  at  him  by  way  of  ultimatum.  As  chance 
would  have  it  at  this  moment,  a  squad  came  round  to  relieve 
guard,  and  the  corporal  very  civilly  informed  the  stranger 
where  he  might  find  the  captain  of  the  guard. 

**  Let  Bonaparte  know  that  Bartolomeo  di  Piombo  wants  to 
see  him,"  said  the  Italian  to  the  officer. 

In  vain  did  the  captain  explain  to  Bartolomeo  that  it  was 
not  possible  to  see  the  First  Consul  without  having  written  to 
him  beforehand  to  request  an  audience.  The  stranger  insisted 
that  the  officer  should  go  to  inform  Bonaparte.  The  captain 
urged  the  rules  of  his  duty,  and  formally  refused  to  yield  to 
the  demands  of  this  strange  petitioner.  Bartolomeo  knit  his 
brows,  looked  at  the  captain  with  a  terrible  scowl,  and  seemed 
to  make  him  responsible  for  all  the  disasters  his  refusal  might 


THE    VENDETTA.  3(» 

occasion ;  then  he  remained  silent,  his  arms  tightly  crossed 
on  his  breast,  and  took  his  stand  under  the  archway  which 
connects  the  garden  and  the  courtyard  of  the  Tuileries. 

People  who  are  thoroughly  bent  on  anything  are  almost 
always  well  served  by  chance.  At  the  moment  Avhen  Barto- 
lomeo  sat  down  on  one  of  the  curb-stones  near  the  entrance 
to  the  palace,  a  carriage  drove  up,  and  out  of  it  stepped  Lucien 
Bonaparte,  at  that  time  minister  of  the  interior. 

"Ah  !  Lucien,  good  luek  for  me  to  have  met  you  !  "  cried 
the  stranger. 

These  words,  spoken  in  the  Corsican  dialect,  made  Lucien 
stop  at  the  instant  when  he  was  rushing  into  the  vestibule ;  he 
looked  at  his  fellow-countryman,  and  recognized  him.  At 
the  first  word  that  Bartolomeo  said  in  his  ear,  he  took  him 
with  him.  Murat,  Lannes,  and  Rapp  were  in  the  First  Con- 
sul's Cabinet.  On  seeing  Lucien  come  in  with  so  strange  a 
figure  as  was  Piombo,  the  conversation  ceased.  Lucien  took 
his  brother's  hand  and  led  him  into  a  window  recess.  After 
exchanging  a  few  words,  the  First  Consul  raised  his  hand 
with  a  gesture,  which  Murat  and  Lannes  obeyed  by  retiring. 
Rapp  affected  not  to  have  seen  it,  and  remained.  Then, 
Bonaparte  having  sharply  called  him  to  order,  the  aide-de- 
camp went  out  with  a  sour  face.  The  First  Consul,  who  heard 
the  sound  of  Rapp's  steps  in  the  neighboring  room,  hastily 
followed  him,  and  saw  him  close  to  the  wall  between  the 
cabinet  and  the  anteroom. 

"You  refuse  to  understand  me?"  said  the  First  Consul. 
*'  I  wish  to  be  alone  with  my  countryman." 

"A  Corsican  !  "  retorted  the  aide-de-camp.  "I  distrust 
those  creatures  too  much  not  to " 

The  First  Consul  could  not  help  smiling,  and  lightly  pushed 
his  faithful  officer  by  the  shoulders. 

"  Well,  and  what  are  you  doing  here,  my  poor  Barto- 
lomeo? "  said  the  First  Consul  to  Piombo. 


310  THE    VENDETTA. 

"  I  have  come  to  ask  for  shelter  and  protection,  if  you  are 
a  true  Corsican,"  replied  Bartolomeo  in  a  rough  tone. 

"What  misfortune  has  driven  you  from  your  native  land? 

You  were  the  richest,  the  most " 

"I  have  killed  all  the  Porta,"  replied  the  Corsican,  in  a 
hollow  voice,  with  a  frown. 

The  First  Consul  drew  back  a  step  or  two,  like  a  man 
astonished. 

"Are  you  going  to  betray  me?  "  cried  Bartolomeo,  with  a 
gloomy  look  at  Bonaparte.  "  Do  you  forget  that  there  are 
still  four  of  the  Piombo  in  Corsica?  " 

Lucien  took  his  fellow-countryman  by  the  arm  and  shook 
him. 

**  Do  you  come  here  to  threaten  the  savior  of  France  ?  "  he 
said  vehemently. 

Bonaparte  made  a  sign  to  Lucien,  who  was  silent.  Then 
he  looked  at  Piombo,  and  said,  **  And  why  did  you  kill  all 
the  Porta?" 

"We  had  made  friends,"  he  replied;  "theBarbanti  had 
reconciled  us.  The  day  after  we  had  drunk  together  to  drown 
our  quarrel  I  left,  because  I  had  business  at  Bastia.  They 
stayed  at  my  place,  and  set  fire  to  my  vineyard  at  Longone. 
They  killed  my  son  Gregorio ;  my  daughter  Ginevra  and  my 
wife  escaped ;  they  had  taken  the  communion  that  morning ; 
the  Virgin  protected  them.  When  I  got  home  I  could  no 
longer  see  my  house ;  I  searched  for  it  with  my  feet  in  the 
ashes.  Suddenly  I  came  across  Gregorio's  body  ;  I  recog- 
nized it  in  the  moonlight.  '  Oh,  the  Porta  have  played  this 
trick  !  '  said  I  to  myself.  I  went  off  at  once  into  the  scrub  ; 
I  got  together  a  few  men  to  whom  I  had  done  some  service — 
do  you  hear,  Bonaparte  ? — and  we  marched  down  on  the 
Porta's  vineyard.  We  arrived  at  five  in  the  morning,  and  by 
seven  they  were  all  in  the  presence  of  God.  Giacomo  de- 
clares that  Elisa  Vanni  saved  a  child,  little  Luigi ;  but  I  tied 
him  into  bed  with  my  own  hands  before  setting  the  house  on 


LUCIEN    TOOK   HIS    FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN    BY    THE   ARM. 


THE    VENDETTA.  311 

fire.  Then  I  quitted  the  island  with  my  wife  and  daughter 
without  being  able  to  make  sure  whether  Luigi  Porta  was 
still  alive." 

Bonaparte  looked  at  Bartolomeo  with  curiosity,  but  no 
astonishment. 

"  How  many  were  they  ?  "  asked  Lucien. 

"Seven,"  replied  Piombo.  "They  persecuted  you  in 
their  day,"  he  added.  The  words  aroused  no  signs  of  hatred 
in  the  two  brothers.  "Ah  !  you  are  no  longer  Corsicans  !  " 
cried  Bartolomeo,  with  a  sort  of  despair.  "  Good-by. 
Formerly  I  protected  you,"  he  went  on  reproachfully.  "But 
for  me  your  mother  would  never  have  reached  Marseilles," 
he  said,  turning  to  Bonaparte,  who  stood  thoughtful,  his 
elbow  resting  on  the  chimney-piece. 

"  I  cannot  in  conscience  take  you  under  my  wing,  Piombo," 
replied  Napoleon.  "  I  am  the  head  of  a  great  nation;  I 
govern  the  Republic ;  I  must  see  that  the  laws  are  carried 
out." 

"Ah,  ha !  "  said  Bartolomeo. 

■'But  I  can  shut  my  eyes,"  Bonaparte  went  on.  "The 
tradition  of  the  Vendetta  will  hinder  the  reign  of  law  in 
Corsica  for  a  long  time  yet,"  he  added,  talking  to  himself. 
"But  it  must  be  stamped  out  at  any  cost." 

He  was  silent  for  a  minute,  and  Lucien  signed  to  Piombo 
to  say  nothing.  The  Corsican  shook  his  head  from  side  to 
side  with  a  disapproving  look. 

"  Remain  here,"  the  First  Consul  said,  addressing  Barto- 
lomeo. "  We  know  nothing.  I  will  see  that  your  estates  are 
purchased  so  as  to  give  you  at  once  the  means  of  living. 
Then  later,  some  time  hence,  we  will  remember  you.  But  no 
more  Vendetta.  There  is  no  Maquis  scrub  here.  If  you 
play  tricks  with  your  dagger,  there  is  no  hope  for  you.  Here 
the  law  protects  everybody,  and  we  do  not  do  justice  on  our 
own  account." 

"He  has  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  strange  people," 


312  THE    VENDETTA. 

replied  Bartolomeo,  taking  Lucien's  hand  and  pressing  it. 
"But  you  recognize  me  in  misfortune;  it  is  a  bond  between 
us  for  life  and  death ;  and  you  may  command  every  one 
named  Piombo."  As  he  spoke  his  brow  cleared,  and  he 
looked  about  him  approvingly. 

"You  are  not  badly  off  here,"  he  said,  with  a  smile,  as  if 
he  would  like  to  lodge  there.  "And  you  are  dressed  all  in 
red  like  a  cardinal." 

"  It  rests  with  you  to  rise  and  have  a  palace  in  Paris,"  said 
Bonaparte,  looking  at  him  from  head  to  foot.  "It  may  often 
happen  that  I  must  look  about  me  for  a  devoted  friend  to 
whom  I  can  trust  myself." 

A  sigh  of  gladness  broke  from  Piombo's  deep  chest ;  he 
held  out  his  hand  to  the  First  Consul,  saying,  "There  is 
something  of  the  Corsican  in  you  still !  " 

Bonaparte  smiled.  He  gazed  in  silence  at  this  man,  who 
had  brought  him  as  it  were  a  breath  of  air  from  his  native 
land,  from  the  island  where  he  had  formerly  been  so  miracu- 
lously saved  from  the  hatred  of  the  "  English  party,"  and 
which  he  was  fated  never  to  see  again.  He  made  a  sign  to 
his  brother,  who  led  away  Bartolomeo  di  Piombo. 

Lucien  inquired  with  interest  as  to  the  pecuniary  position 
of  the  man  who  had  once  protected  his  family.  Piombo  led 
tlie  minister  of  the  interior  to  a  window  and  showed  him  his 
wife  and  Ginevra,  both  seated  on  a  heap  of  stones,  awaiting 
his  return. 

"We  have  come  from  Fontainebleau  on  foot,"  said  he, 
'*  and  we  have  not  a  sou." 

Lucien  gave  his  fellow-countryman  his  purse,  and  desired 
him  to  come  again  next  morning  to  consult  as  to  the  means 
of  providing  for  his  family.  The  income  from  all  Piombo's 
possessions  in  Corsica  could  hardly  suffice  to  maintain  him 
respectably  in  Paris. 

Fifteen  years  elapsed  between  the  arrival  of  the  Piombo 


THE    VENDETTA.  813 

family  in  Paris  and  the  following  incidents,  which,  without 
the  story  of  this  event,  would  have  been  less  intelligible. 

Servin,  one  of  our  most  distinguished  artists,  was  the  first 
to  conceive  the  idea  of  opening  a  studio  for  young  ladies  who 
may  wish  to  take  lessons  in  painting.  He  was  a  man  of  over 
forty,  of  blameless  habits,  and  wholly  given  up  to  his  art ; 
and  he  had  married  for  love  the  daughter  of  a  general  with- 
out any  fortune.  At  first  mothers  brought  their  daughters 
themselves  to  the  professor's  studio  ;  but  when  they  under- 
stood his  high  principles  and  appreciated  the  care  by  which 
he  strove  to  deserve  such  confidence,  they  ended  by  sending 
the  girls  alone.  It  was  part  of  the  painter's  scheme  to  take  as 
pupils  only  young  ladies  of  rich  or  highly  respectable  family, 
that  no  difficulties  might  arise  as  to  the  society  in  his  studio ; 
he  had  even  refused  to  take  young  girls  who  intended  to 
become  artists,  and  who  must  necessarily  have  had  certain 
kinds  of  training  without  which  no  mastery  is  possible.  By 
degrees  his  prudence,  the  superior  method  by  which  he  initi- 
ated his  pupils  into  the  secrets  of  his  art,  as  well  as  the 
security  their  mothers  felt  in  knowing  that  their  daughters 
were  in  the  company  of  well-bred  girls,  and  in  the  artist's 
character,  manners,  and  marriage,  won  him  a  high  reputation 
in  the  world  of  fashion.  As  soon  as  a  young  girl  showed  any 
desire  to  learn  drawing  or  painting,  and  her  mother  asked 
advice,  "  Send  her  to  Servin,"  was  always  the  answer. 

Thus  Servin  had  a  specialty  for  teaching  ladies  art,  as  Her- 
bault  had  for  bonnets,  Leroy  for  dresses,  and  Chevet  for 
dainties.  It  was  acknowledged  that  a  young  woman  who  had 
taken  lessons  of  Servin  could  pronounce  definitely  on  the 
pictures  in  the  Louvre,  paint  a  portrait  in  a  superior  manner, 
copy  an  old  picture,  and  produce  her  own  painting  of  genre. 
Thus  this  artist  sufficed  for  all  the  requirements  of  the  aris- 
tocracy. 

Notwithstanding  his  connection  with  all  the  best  houses 
in  Paris,  he  was  independent  and  patriotic,  preserving  with 


314  THE    VENDETTA. 

all  alike  the  light  and  witty  tone,  sometimes  ironical,  and 
the  freedom  of  opinion  which  characterize  painters. 

He  had  carried  his  scrupulous  precautions  into  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  place  where  his  scholars  worked.  The 
outer  entrance  to  the  loft  above  his  dwelling-rooms  had 
been  walled  up;  to  get  into  this  retreat,  as  sacred  as  a 
harem,  the  way  was  up  a  staircase  in  the  centre  of  the 
house.  This  studio,  which  occupied  the  whole  of  the  top 
story,  was  on  the  vast  scale  which  always  surprises  inquis- 
itive strangers  when,  having  climbed  to  sixty  feet  above  the 
ground,  they  expect  to  find  an  artist  lodged  in  the  gutter. 
It  was  a  kind  of  gallery,  abundantly  lighted  by  immense 
skylights  screened  with  the  large  green  blinds  which  artists 
use  to  distribute  the  light.  A  quantity  of  caricatures,  heads 
sketched  in  outline  with  a  brush  or  the  point  of  a  palette 
knife,  all  over  the  dark  gray  walls,  proved  that,  allowing 
for  a  difference  in  the  expression,  fine  young  ladies  have 
as  much  whimsicality  in  their  brain  as  men  can  have.  A 
small  stove,  with  a  huge  pipe  that  made  amazing  zigzags 
before  reaching  the  upper  region  of  the  roof,  was  the  in- 
evitable decoration  of  this  studio.  There  was  a  shelf  all 
round  the  room,  supporting  plaster  casts  which  lay  there 
in  confusion,  most  of  them  under  a  coating  of  whitish 
dust. 

Above  this  shelf  here  and  there  a  head  of  Niobe  hanging 
to  a  nail  showed  its  pathetic  bend,  a  Venus  smiled,  a  hand 
was  unexpectedly  thrust  out  before  your  eyes,  like  a  beggar 
asking  alms ;  then  there  were  anatomical  ecorchis,  yellow 
with  smoke,  and  looking  like  limbs  snatched  from  coffins ; 
and  pictures,  drawings,  lay  figures,  frames  without  canvas, 
and  canvasses  without  frames,  completed  the  effect,  giving 
the  room  the  characteristic  aspect  of  a  studio,  a  singular 
mixture  of  ornamentation  and  bareness,  of  poverty  and 
splendor,  of  care  and  neglect. 

This  huge  sort  of  hold,  in  which  everything,  even  man. 


THE    VENDETTA.  S15 

looks  small,  has  a  behind-the-scenes  flavor;  here  are  to  be 
seen  old  linen,  gilt  armor,  odds  and  ends  of  stuffs,  and  some 
machinery.  But  there  is  something  about  it  as  grand  as 
thought :  genius  and  death  are  there ;  Diana  and  Apollo 
side  by  side  with  a  skull  or  a  skeleton ;  beauty  and  disorder, 
poetry  and  reality,  gorgeous  coloring  in  shadow,  and  often 
a  whole  drama,  but  motionless  and  silent.  How  symbol- 
ical of  the  artist  brain  ! 

At  the  moment  when  my  story  begins  the  bright  sun  of 
July  lighted  up  the  studio,  and  two  beams  of  sunshine  shot 
across  its  depths,  broad  bands  of  diaphanous  gold  in  which 
the  dust-motes  glistened.  A  dozen  easels  raised  their  pointed 
spars,  looking  like  the  masts  of  vessels  in  a  harbor.  Sev- 
eral young  girls  gave  life  to  the  scene  by  the  variety  of 
their  countenances  and  attitudes,  and  the  difference  in  their 
dress.  The  strong  shadows  cast  by  the  green  baize  blinds, 
arranged  to  suit  the  position  of  each  easel,  produced  a  multi- 
tude of  contrasts  and  fascinating  effects  of  chiaro-oscuro. 

This  group  of  girls  formed  the  most  attractive  picture  in 
the  gallery.  A  fair-haired  girl,  simply  dressed,  stood  at  some 
distance  from  her  companions,  working  perseveringly  and 
seeming  to  foresee  misfortune  ;  no  one  looked  at  her  nor  spoke 
to  her ;  she  was  the  prettiest,  the  most  modest,  and  the  least 
rich.  Two  principal  groups,  divided  by  a  little  space,  repre- 
sented two  classes  of  society,  two  spirits,  even  in  this  studio, 
where  rank  and  fortune  ought  to  have  been  forgotten. 

These  young  things,  sitting  or  standing,  surrounded  by  their 
paint-boxes,  playing  with  their  brushes  or  getting  them  ready, 
handling  their  bright-tinted  palettes,  painting,  chattering, 
laughing,  singing,  given  up  to  their  natural  impulses  and  reveal- 
ing their  true  characters,  made  up  a  drama  unknown  to  men  ; 
this  one  proud,  haughty,  capricious,  with  black  hair  and  beauti- 
ful hands,  flashed  the  fire  of  her  eyes  at  random  ;  that  one  light- 
hearted  and  heedless,  a  smile  on  her  lips,  her  hair  chestnut, 
with  delicate  white  hands,  virginal  and  French,  a  light  nature 


316  THE    VENDETTA. 

without  a  thought  of  evil,  living  from  hour  to  hour;  another, 
dreamy,  melancholy,  pale,  her  head  drooping  like  a  falling 
blossom ;  her  neighbor,  on  the  contrary,  tall,  indolent,  with 
Oriental  manners,  and  long,  black,  melting  eyes,  speaking 
little  but  lost  in  thought,  and  stealing  a  look  at  the  head  of 
Antinous. 

In  the  midst,  like  the  Jocoso  of  a  Spanish  comedy,  a  girl, 
full  of  wit  and  sparkling  sallies,  stood  watching  them  all 
with  a  single  glance,  and  making  them  laugh ;  raising  a  face 
so  full  of  life  that  it  could  not  but  be  pretty.  She  was  the 
leader  of  the  first  group  of  pupils,  consisting  of  the  daughters 
of  bankers,  lawyers,  and  merchants — all  rich,  but  exposed  to 
all  the  minute  but  stinging  disdains  freely  poured  out  upon 
them  by  the  other  young  girls  who  belonged  to  the  aristocracy. 
These  were  governed  by  the  daughter  of  a  gentleman  usher  to 
the  King's  private  chamber,  a  vain  little  thing,  as  silly  as  she 
was  vain,  and  proud  of  her  father  having  an  office  at  court. 
She  aimed  at  seeming  to  understand  the  master's  remarks  at  the 
first  word,  and  appearing  to  work  by  inspired  grace  ;  she  used 
an  eyeglass,  came  very  much  dressed,  very  late,  and  begged 
her  companions  not  to  talk  loud.  Among  this  second  group 
might  be  observed  some  exquisite  shapes  and  distinguished- 
looking  faces;  but  their  looks  expressed  but  little  simplicity. 
Though  their  attitudes  were  elegant  and  their  movements 
graceful,  their  faces  were  lacking  in  candor,  and  it  was  easy 
to  perceive  that  they  belonged  to  a  world  where  politeness 
forms  the  character  at  an  early  age,  and  the  abuse  of  social 
pleasures  kills  the  feelings  and  develops  selfishness.  When 
the  whole  party  of  girl  students  was  complete  there  were  to 
be  seen  among  them  child-like  heads,  virgin  heads  of  en- 
chanting purity,  faces  where  the  parted  lips  showed  virgin 
teeth,  and  where  a  virgin  smile  came  and  went.  Then  the 
studio  suggested  not  a  seraglio,  but  a  group  of  angels  sitting 
on  a  cloud  in  heaven. 

It  was  near  noon  ;  Servin  had  not  yet  made  his  appearance. 


THE    VENDETTA.  817 

For  some  days  past  he  had  spent  most  of  his  time  at  a  studio 
he  had  elsewhere,  finishing  a  picture  he  had  there  for  the  exhi- 
bition. Suddenly  Mademoiselle  Amelie  Thirion,  the  head  of 
the  aristocrats  in  this  little  assembly,  spoke  at  some  length  to 
her  neighbor;  there  was  profound  silence  among  the  patrician 
group;  the  banker  faction  was  equally  silent  from  astonish- 
ment, and  tried  to  guess  the  subject  of  such  a  conference.  But 
the  secret  of  the  young  iiltras  was  soon  known.  Amelie  rose, 
took  an  easel  that  stood  near  her,  and  moved  it  to  some  dis- 
tance from  the  "  nobility,"  close  to  a  clumsy  partition  which 
divided  the  studio  from  a  dark  closet  where  broken  casts  were 
kept,  paintings  that  the  professor  had  condemned,  and,  in 
winter,  the  firewood.  Amelie's  proceedings  gave  rise  to  a 
murmur  of  surprise  which  did  not  hinder  her  from  completing 
the  removal  by  wheeling  up  to  the  easel  a  stool  and  paint-box, 
in  fact,  everything,  even  a  picture  by  Prudhon,  of  which  a 
pupil,  who  had  not  yet  come,  was  making  a  copy.  After  this 
coup  d'etat  the  party  of  the  right  painted  on  in  silence ;  but 
the  left  talked  it  over  at  great  length,  each  one  freely  ex- 
pressing themselves  against  the  wisdom  of  such  an  act. 

"What  will  Mademoiselle  Piombo  say?  "  asked  one  of  the 
girls  of  Mademoiselle  Mathilde  Roguin,  the  oracle  of  mischief 
of  her  group. 

"She  is  not  a  girl  to  say  much,"  was  the  reply.  "But 
fifty  years  hence  she  will  remember  this  insult  as  if  she  had 
experienced  it  the  day  before,  and  will  find  some  cruel  means 
of  revenge.  She  is  a  person  I  should  not  like  to  be  at  war 
with." 

"  The  proscription  to  which  those  ladies  have  condemned 
her  is  all  the  more  unjust,"  said  another  young  girl,  "  because 
Mademoiselle  Ginevra  was  very  sad  the  day  before  yesterday ; 
her  father,  they  say,  has  just  given  up  his  appointment.  This 
will  add  to  her  troubles,  while  she  was  very  good  to  those 
young  ladies  during  the  Hundred  Days.  Did  she  ever  say  a 
word  that  could  hurt  them  ?     On  the  contrary,  she  avoided 


818  THE    VENDETTA. 

talking   politics.     But  our  ultras  seem  to  be   prompted  by 
jealousy  rather  than  by  party  spirit." 

"  I  have  a  great  mind  to  fetch  Mademoiselle  Piombo's  easel 
and  place  it  by  mine,"  said  Mathilde  Roguin.  She  rose,  but 
on  second  thoughts  she  sat  down  again.  "  With  a  spirit  like 
Mademoiselle  Ginevra's,"  said  she,  "it  is  impossible  to  know 
how  she  would  take  our  civility.  Let  us  wait  and  see,"  and 
she  resumed  her  work  at  the  easel. 

*'  Eccola  /"  said  the  black-eyed  girl  languidly.  In  fact, 
the  sound  of  footsteps  coming  upstairs  was  heard  in  the  studio. 
The  words,  "  Here  she  comes  !"  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
and  then  perfect  silence  fell. 

To  understand  the  full  importance  of  the  ostracism  carried 
into  effect  by  Amelie  Thirion,  it  must  be  told  that  this  scene 
took  place  towards  the  end  of  the  month  of  July,  1815.  The 
second  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  broke  up  many  friendships 
which  had  weathered  the  turmoil  of  the  first.  At  this  time 
families,  almost  always  divided  among  themselves,  renewed 
many  of  the  most  deplorable  scenes  which  tarnish  the  history 
of  all  countries  at  periods  of  civil  or  religious  struggles. 
Children,  young  girls,  old  men,  had  caught  the  monarchical 
fever  from  which  the  government  was  suffering.  Discord  flew 
in  under  the  domestic  roof,  and  suspicion  dyed  in  gloomy 
hues  the  most  intimate  conversations  and  actions. 

Ginevra  di  Piombo  idolized  Napoleon;  indeed,  how  could 
she  have  hated  him  ?  The  Emperor  was  her  fellow-country- 
man, and  her  father's  benefactor.  Baron  di  Piombo  was  one 
of  Napoleon's  followers  who  had  most  efficiently  worked  to 
bring  him  back  from  Elba.  Incapable  of  renouncing  his 
political  faith,  nay,  eager  to  proclaim  it,  Piombo  had  re- 
mained in  Paris  in  the  midst  of  enemies.  Hence  Ginevra  di 
Piombo  was  ranked  with  the  "suspicious  characters,"  all  the 
more  so  because  she  made  no  secret  of  the  regret  her  family 
felt  at  the  second  restoration.  The  only  tears  she  had  per- 
haps ever  shed  in  her  life  were  wrung  from  her  by  the  twofold 


THE    VENDETTA.  Sid 

tidings  of  Bonaparte's   surrender  on   board  the  Bellerophon 
and  the  arrest  of  Labedoyere. 

The  young  ladies  forming  the  aristocratic  party  in  the  studio 
belonged  to  the  most  enthusiastically  Royalist  families  of  Paris. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  give  any  idea  of  the  exaggerated  feel- 
ings of  the  time,  and  of  the  horror  felt  towards  Bonapartists. 
However  mean  and  trivial  Amelie  Thirion's  conduct  may 
seem  to-day,  it  was  then  a  very  natural  demonstration  of 
hatred.  Ginevra  di  Piombo,  one  of  Servin's  earliest  pupils, 
had  occupied  the  place  of  which  they  wished  to  deprive  her 
ever  since  the  first  day  she  had  come  to  the  studio.  The 
aristocratic  group  had  gradually  settled  round  her;  and  to 
turn  her  out  of  a  place,  which  in  a  certain  sense  belonged  to 
her,  was  not  merely  to  insult  her,  but  to  cause  her  some  pain, 
for  all  artists  have  a  predilection  for  the  spot  where  they  work. 

However,  political  hostility  had  perhaps  not  much  to  do 
with  the  conduct  of  this  little  studio  party  of  the  right. 
Ginevra  di  Piombo,  the  most  accomplished  of  Servin's  pupils, 
was  an  object  of  the  deepest  jealousy.  The  master  professed 
an  equal  admiration  for  the  talents  and  the  character  of  this 
favorite  pupil,  who  served  as  the  standard  of  all  his  compari- 
sons; and,  indeed,  while  it  was  impossible  to  explain  the 
ascendency  this  young  girl  exercised  over  all  who  were  about 
her,  she  enjoyed  in  this  small  world  an  influence  resembling 
that  of  Bonaparte  over  his  soldiers.  The  aristocratic  clique 
had,  some  days  since,  resolved  on  the  overthrow  of  this 
queen  ;  but  as  no  one  had  been  bold  enough  to  repulse  the 
Bonapartists,  Mademoiselle  Thirion  had  just  struck  the  deci- 
sive blow  so  as  to  make  her  companions  the  accomplices  of 
her  hatred.  Though  Ginevra  was  really  beloved  by  some  of 
the  Royalist  party,  who  at  home  were  abundantly  lectured  on 
politics,  with  the  tact  peculiar  to  women,  they  judged  it  best 
not  to  interfere  in  the  quarrel. 

On  entering,  Ginevra  was  received  in  perfect  silence.  Of 
all  the  girls  who  had  yet  appeared  at  Servin's  studio,  she  was 


saO  THE    VENDETTA. 

the  handsomest,  the  tallest,  and  the  most  finely  made.  Her 
gait  had  a  stamp  of  dignity  and  grace  which  commanded 
respect.  Her  face,  full  of  intelligence,  seemed  radiant,  it 
was  so  transfused  with  the  animation  peculiar  to  Corsicans, 
which  does  not  exclude  calmness.  Her  abundant  hair,  her 
eyes,  and  their  black  lashes  told  of  passion.  Though  the 
corners  of  her  mouth  were  softly  drawn  and  her  lips  a  little 
too  thick,  they  had  the  kindly  expression  which  strong  people 
derive  from  the  consciousness  of  strength.  By  a'  singular 
freak  of  nature  the  charm  of  her  features  was  in  some  sort 
belied  by  a  marble  forehead  stamped  with  an  almost  savage 
pride,  and  the  traditional  habits  of  Corsica.  That  was  the 
only  bond  between  her  and  her  native  land ;  in  every  other 
detail  of  her  person  the  simplicity  and  freedom  of  Lombard 
beauties  were  so  bewitching,  that  only  in  her  absence  could 
any  one  bear  to  cause  her  the  smallest  pain.  She  was,  indeed, 
so  attractive,  that  her  old  father,  out  of  prudence,  never 
allowed  her  to  walk  alone  to  the  studio. 

The  only  fault  of  this  really  poetic  creature  came  of  the 
very  power  of  such  fully  developed  beauty.  She  had  refused 
to  marry,  out  of  affection  for  her  father  and  mother,  feeling 
herself  necessary  to  them  in  their  old  age.  Her  taste  for 
painting  had  taken  the  place  of  the  passions  which  commonly 
agitate  women. 

"You  are  all  very  silent  to-day,"  she  said,  after  coming 
forward  a  step  or  two.  "Good-morning,  my  little  Laure," 
she  added  in  a  gentle,  caressing  tone,  as  she  went  up  to 
the  young  girl  who  was  painting  apart  from  the  rest.  "  That 
head  is  very  good.  The  flesh  is  a  little  too  pink,  but  it  is  all 
capitally  drawn." 

Laure  raised  her  head,  looked  at  Ginevra  much  touched, 
and  their  faces  brightened  with  an  expression  of  mutual  affec- 
tion. A  faint  smile  gave  life  to  the  Italian's  lips,  but  she 
seemed  pensive,  and  went  slowly  to  her  place,  carelessly  glanc- 
ing at  the  drawings  and  pictures,  and  saying  good-morning  to 


THE    VENDETTA.  321 

each  of  the  girls  of  the  first  group,  without  observing  the 
unusual  curiosity  excited  by  her  presence.  She  might  have 
been  a  queen  amid  her  court.  She  did  not  observe  the  deep 
silence  that  reigned  among  the  aristocrats,  and  passed  their 
camp  without  saying  a  word.  Her  absence  of  mind  was  so 
complete  that  she  went  to  her  easel,  opened  her  paint-box, 
took  out  her  brushes,  slipped  on  her  brown  linen  cuffs,  tied 
her  apron,  examined  her  palette,  all  without  thinking,  as  it 
seemed,  of  what  she  was  doing.  All  the  heads  of  the  humbler 
group  were  turned  to  look  at  her.  And  if  the  young  ladies 
of  the  Thirion  faction  were  less  frankly  impatient  than  their 
companions,  their  side  glances  were  nevertheless  directed  to 
Ginevra. 

"  She  notices  nothing,"  said  Mademoiselle  Roguin. 

At  this  moment  Ginevra,  roused  from  the  meditative  atti- 
tude in  which  she  had  gazed  at  her  canvas,  turned  her  head 
towards  the  aristocratic  party.  With  one  glance  she  measured 
the  distance  that  lay  between  them,  and  held  her  peace. 

"  It  has  not  occurred  to  her  that  they  meant  to  insult  her," 
said  Mathilde.  "  She  has  neither  colored  nor  turned  pale. 
How  provoked  those  young  ladies  will  be  if  she  likes  her  new 
place  better  than  the  old  one  !  You  are  quite  apart  there, 
mademoiselle,"  she  added  louder,  and  addressing  Ginevra. 

The  Italian  girl  affected  not  to  hear,  or  perhaps  she  did  not 
hear  ;  she  hastily  rose,  walked  rather  slowly  along  the  parti- 
tion which  divided  the  dark  closet  from  the  studio,  seeming 
to  examine  the  skylight  from  which  the  light  fell ;  and  to  this 
she  ascribed  so  much  importance  that  she  got  upon  a  chair  to 
fasten  the  green  baize  which  interfered  with  the  light,  a  good 
deal  higher.  At  this  elevation  she  was  on  a  level  with  a 
small  crack  in  the  boarding,  the  real  object  of  her  efforts,  for 
the  look  she  cast  through  it  can  only  be  compared  with  that 
of  a  miser  discovering  Aladdin's  treasure.  She  quickly 
descended,  came  back  to  her  place,  arranged  her  picture, 
affected  still  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  light,  pushed  a  table 
21 


322  THE    VENDETTA. 

close  to  the  partition,  and  placed  a  chair  on  it ;  then  she 
nimbly  mounted  this  scaffolding,  and  again  peeped  through 
the  crack.  She  gave  but  one  look  into  the  closet,  which  was 
lighted  by  a  window  at  the  top  of  the  partition,  but  what  she 
saw  impressed  her  so  vividly  that  she  started. 

"You  will  fall,  Mademoiselle  Ginevra !  "  cried  Laure. 

All  the  girls  turned  to  look  at  their  imprudent  companion, 
who  was  tottering.  The  fear  of  seeing  them  gather  round  her 
gave  her  courage ;  she  recovered  her  strength  and  her  balance, 
and,  dancing  on  the  chair,  she  turned  to  Laure  and  said  with 
some  agitation : 

"  Bah  !     It  is  at  any  rate  safer  than  a  throne  !  " 

She  quickly  arranged  the  baize,  came  down,  pushed  the 
table  and  the  chair  far  from  the  partition,  returned  to  her 
easel,  and  made  a  few  more  attempts,  seeming  to  try  for  an 
effect  of  light  that  suited  her.  Her  picture  did  not  really 
trouble  her  at  all ;  her  aim  was  to  get  close  to  the  dark  closet 
by  which  she  placed  herself,  as  she  wished,  at  the  end  near 
the  door.  Then  she  prepared  to  set  her  palette,  still  in  per- 
fect silence.  Where  she  now  was  she  soon  heard  more  dis- 
tinctly a  slight  noise  which,  on  the  day  before,  had  greatly 
stirred  her  curiosity,  and  sent  her  young  imagination  wander- 
ing over  a  wide  field  of  conjecture.  She  easily  recognized  it 
as  the  deep,  regular  breathing  of  the  sleeping  man  whom  she 
had  just  now  seen.  Her  curiosity  was  satisfied,  but  she  found 
herself  burdened  with  an  immense  responsibility.  Through 
the  crack  she  had  caught  sight  of  the  imperial  eagle,  and  on 
a  camp  bed,  in  the  dim  light,  had  seen  the  figure  of  an  officer 
of  the  Guards.  She  guessed  it  all.  Servin  was  sheltering  a 
refugee. 

She  now  trembled  lest  one  of  her  companions  should  come 
to  examine  her  picture,  and  should  hear  the  unfortunate  man 
breathe  or  heave  too  deep  a  sigh,  such  as  had  fallen  on  her 
ear  during  yesterday's  lesson.  She  resolved  to  remain  near 
the  door,  and  trust  to  her  wits  to  cheat  the  tricks  of  fate. 


THE    VENDETTA.  323 

"I  had  better  remain  here,"  thought  she,  "to  prevent 
some  disaster,  than  leave  the  poor  prisoner  at  the  mercy  of 
some  giddy  prank." 

This  was  the  secret  of  Ginevra's  apparent  indifference  when 
she  found  her  easel  transplanted  ;  she  was  secretly  delighted, 
since  she  had  been  able  to  satisfy  her  curiosity  in  a  natural 
manner;  and,  besides,  she  was  too  much  absorbed  at  this 
moment  to  inquire  into  the  reason  of  her  exclusion.  Nothing 
is  more  mortifying  to  young  girls,  or  indeed  to  any  one,  than 
to  see  a  practical  joke,  an  insult,  or  a  witticism  fail  of  its  effect 
in  consequence  of  the  victim's  contempt.  It  would  seem  that 
our  hatred  of  an  enemy  is  increased  by  the  height  to  which 
he  can  rise  above  us. 

Ginevra's  conduct  remained  a  riddle  to  all  her  companions. 
Her  friends  and  her  foes  were  alike  surprised,  for  she  was 
allowed  to  have  every  good  quality  excepting  forgiveness  of 
injuries.  Though  the  opportunities  for  showing  this  vice  of 
temper  had  rarely  been  offered  to  Ginevra  by  the  incidents 
of  studio  life,  the  instances  she  had  happened  to  give  of  her 
vindictive  spirit  and  determination  had  none  the  less  made 
a  deep  impression  on  her  companions'  minds.  After  many 
guesses,  Mademoiselle  Roguin  finally  regarded  the  Italian's 
silence  as  evidence  of  a  magnanimity  above  all  praise  ;  and 
her  party,  inspired  by  her,  conceived  a  plan  to  humiliate  the 
aristocrats  of  the  studio.  They  achieved  their  purpose  by  a 
fire  of  sarcasms  directed  at  the  pride  and  airs  of  the  party  of 
the  right. 

Madame  Servin's  arrival  put  an  end  to  this  contest  of  self- 
assertiveness.  Amelie,  with  the  shrewdness  which  is  always 
coupled  with  malice,  had  remarked,  watched,  and  wondered 
at  the  excessive  absence  of  mind  which  hindered  Ginevra 
from  hearing  the  keenly  polite  dispute  of  which  she  was  the 
subject.  The  revenge  which  Mademoiselle  Roguin  and  her 
followers  were  wreaking  on  Mademoiselle  Thirion  and  her 
party  had  thus  the  fatal  effect  of  setting  the  young  ultras  to 


324  THE    VENDETTA. 

discover  the  cause  of  Ginevra's  absorbed  silence.  The  beau- 
tiful Italian  became  the  centre  of  observation,  and  was  watched 
by  her  friends  as  much  as  by  her  enemies.  It  is  very  difficult 
to  hide  the  slightest  excitement,  the  most  trifling  feeling  from 
fifteen  idle  and  inquisitive  girls  whose  mischief  and  wits  crave 
only  for  secrets  to  guess  and  intrigues  to  plot  or  to  baffle, 
and  who  can  ascribe  to  a  gesture,  to  a  glance,  to  a  word,  so 
many  meanings,  that  they  can  hardly  fail  to  discover  the  true 
one.  Thus  Ginevra  di  Piombo's  secret  was  in  great  peril  of 
being  found  out. 

At  this  moment  Madame  Servin's  presence  produced  a  di- 
version in  the  drama  that  was  being  obscurely  played  at  the 
bottom  of  these  young  hearts ;  while  its  sentiments,  its  ideas, 
its  development  were  expressed  by  almost  allegorical  words, 
by  significant  looks,  by  gestures,  and  even  by  silence,  often 
more  emphatic  than  speech. 

The  moment  Madame  Servin  came  into  the  studio  her  eyes 
turned  to  the  door  by  which  Ginevra  was  standing.  Under 
the  present  circumstances  this  look  was  not  lost.  If  at  first 
none  of  the  maidens  observed  it,  Mademoiselle  Thirion  remem- 
bered it  afterwards,  and  accounted  for  the  suspiciousness,  the 
alarm,  and  mystery  which  gave  a  hunted  expression  to  Madame 
Servin's  eyes. 

"  Mesdemoiselles,"  she  said,  "  Monsieur  Servin  cannot  come 
to-day."  Then  she  paid  some  little  compliment  to  each  pupil, 
all  of  them  welcoming  her  in  the  girlish  caressing  way  which 
lies  as  much  in  the  voice  and  eyes  as  in  actions.  She  imme- 
diately went  to  Ginevra  under  an  impulse  of  uneasiness,  which 
she  vainly  tried  to  conceal.  The  Italian  and  the  painter's 
wife  exchanged  friendly  nods  and  then  stood  in  silence,  one 
painting,  the  other  watching  her  paint.  The  officer's  breath- 
ing was  easily  audible,  but  Madame  Servin  could  take  no 
notice  of  it;  and  her  dissimulation  was  so  complete  that 
Ginevra  was  tempted  to  accuse  her  of  willful  deafness.  At 
this  moment  the  stranger  turned  on  the  bed.    The  Italian  girl 


THE    VENDETTA.  325 

looked  Madame  Servin  steadily  in  the  face,  and,  without  be- 
traying the  smallest  agitation,  the  lady  said,  "  Your  copy  is  as 
fine  as  the  original.  If  I  had  to  choose,  I  should  really  be 
puzzled." 

"  Monsieur  Servin  has  not  let  his  wife  into  the  secret  of  this 
mystery,"  thought  Ginevra,  who,  after  answering  the  young 
wife  with  a  gentle  smile  of  incredulity,  sang  a  snatch  of  some 
national  canzonetta  to  cover  any  sounds  the  prisoner  might 
make. 

It  was  so  unusual  to  hear  the  studious  Italian  sing  that  all 
the  girls  looked  at  her  in  surprise.  Later  this  incident  served 
as  evidence  to  the  charitable  suppositions  of  hatred.  Madame 
Servin  soon  went  away,  and  the  hours  of  study  ended  without 
further  event.  Ginevra  let  all  her  companions  leave,  affect- 
ing to  work  on ;  but  she  unconsciously  betrayed  her  wish  to 
be  alone,  for  as  the  pupils  made  ready  to  go  she  looked  at 
them  with  ill-disguised  impatience.  Mademoiselle  Thirion, 
who  within  these  few  hours  had  become  a  cruel  foe  to  the 
young  girl  who  was  her  superior  in  everything,  guessed  by 
the  instinct  of  hatred  that  her  rival's  affected  industry  covered 
a  mystery.  She  had  been  struck  more  than  once  by  the  atten- 
tion with  which  Ginevra  seemed  to  be  listening  to  a  sound  no 
one  else  could  hear.  The  expression  she  now  read  in  the 
Italian's  eyes  was  as  a  flash  of  illumination.  She  was  the  last  to 
leave,  and  went  in  on  her  way  down  to  see  Madame  Servin,  with 
whom  she  stayed  a  few  minutes.  Then,  pretending  that  she 
had  forgotten  her  bag,  she  very  softly  went  upstairs  again  to  the 
studio,  and  discovered  Ginevra  at  the  stop  of  a  hastily-con- 
structed scaffolding,  so  lost  in  contemplation  of  the  unknown 
soldier  that  she  did  not  hear  the  light  sound  of  her  compan- 
ion's footsteps.  It  is  true  that  Am6lie  walked  on  eggs — to  use 
a  phrase  of  Walter  Scott's ;  she  retired  to  the  door  and 
coughed.  Ginevra  started,  turned  her  head,  saw  her  enemy, 
and  colored  ;  then  she  quickly  untied  the  blind,  to  mislead 
her  as  to  her  purpose,  and  came  down.     After  putting  away 


326  THE    VENDETTA. 

her  paint-box,  she  left  the  studio,  carrying  stamped  upon  her 
heart  the  image  of  a  man's  head  as  charming  as  the  Endy- 
mion,  Girodet's  masterpiece,  which  she  had  copied  a  few  days 
previously. 

"So  young  a  man,  and  proscribed!  Who  can  he  be? — 
for  it  is  not  Marshal  Ney." 

These  two  sentences  are  the  simplest  expression  of  all  the 
ideas  which  Ginevra  turned  over  in  her  mind  during  two  days. 
The  next  day  but  one,  notwithstanding  her  hurry  to  be  first 
at  the  painting  gallery,  she  found  that  Mademoiselle  Thirion 
had  already  come  in  a  carriage.  Ginevra  and  her  enemy 
watched  each  other  for  some  time,  but  each  kept  her  counte- 
nance impenetrable  by  the  other.  Amelie  had  seen  the 
stranger's  handsome  face  ;  but  happily,  and  at  the  same  time 
unhappily,  the  eagles  and  the  uniform  were  not  within  the 
range  of  her  eye  through  the  crack.  She  lost  herself  in  con- 
jecture.    Suddenly  Servin  came  in,  much  earlier  than  usual. 

"  Mademoiselle  Ginevra,"  said  he,  after  casting  an  eye 
round  the  gallery,  "why  have  you  placed  yourself  there ? 
The  light  is  bad.  Come  nearer  to  these  young  ladies,  and 
lower  your  blind  a  little." 

Then  he  sat  down  by  Laure,  whose  work  deserved  his  most 
lenient  criticism. 

"  Well  done ! "  he  exclaimed,  "this  head  is  capitally  done. 
You  will  be  a  second  Ginevra." 

The  master  went  from  easel  to  easel,  blaming,  flattering, 
and  jesting ;  and  making  himself,  as  usual,  more  feared  for 
his  jests  than  for  his  reproofs. 

The  Italian  had  not  obeyed  his  wishes;  she  remained  at 
her  post  with  the  firm  intention  of  staying  there.  She  took 
out  a  sheet  of  paper  and  began  to  sketch  in  sepia  the  head  of 
the  unhappy  refugee.  A  work  conceived  of  with  passion 
always  bears  a  particular  stamp.  The  faculty  of  giving  truth 
to  a  rendering  of  nature  or  of  a  thought  constitutes  genius, 
and  passion  can  often  take  its  place.     Thus  in  the  circum- 


THE    VENDETTA.  ^ 

Stances  in  which  Ginevra  found  herself,  either  the  intuition 
she  owed  to  her  memory,  which  had  been  deeply  struck,  or 
perhaps  necessity,  the  mother  of  greatness,  lent  her  a  super- 
natural flash  of  talent.  The  officer's  head  was  thrown  off  on 
the  paper  with  an  inward  trembling  that  she  ascribed  to  fear, 
and  which  a  physiologist  would  have  recognized  as  the  fever 
of  inspiration.  From  time  to  time  she  stole  a  furtive  glance 
at  her  companions,  so  as  to  be  able  to  hide  the  sketch  in  case 
of  any  indiscretion  on  their  part.  But,  in  spite  of  her  sharp 
lookout,  there  was  a  moment  when  she  failed  to  perceive 
that  her  relentless  enemy,  under  the  shelter  of  a  huge  port- 
folio, had  turned  her  eyeglass  on  the  mysterious  drawing. 
Mademoiselle  Thirion,  recognizing  the  refugee's  features, 
raised  her  head  suddenly,  and  Ginevra  slipped  away  the  sheet 
of  paper. 

"Why  do  you  stay  there,  in  spite  of  my  opinion.  Made- 
moiselle! "  the  professor  gravely  asked  Ginevra. 

The  girl  hastily  turned  her  easel  so  that  no  one  could  see 
her  sketch,  and  said,  in  an  agitated  voice,  as  she  showed  it  to 
her  master. 

"Don't  you  think  with  me  that  this  is  a  better  light  ?  May 
I  not  stay  where  I  am  ?  " 

Servin  turned  pale.  As  nothing  can  escape  the  keen  eyes 
of  hatred,  Mademoiselle  Thirion  threw  herself,  so  to  speak, 
into  the  excited  feelings  that  agitated  the  professor  and  his 
pupil. 

"You  are  right,"  said  Servin,  "But  you  will  soon 
know  more  than  I  do,"  he  added,  with  a  forced  laugh. 
There  was  a  silence,  during  which  the  master  looked  at 
the  head  of  the  officer,  "This  is  a  masterpiece,  worthy 
of  Salvator  Rosa!"  he  exclaimed,  with  an  artist's  vehe- 
mence. 

At  this  exclamation  all  the  young  people  rose,  and  Made- 
moiselle Thirion  came  forward  with  the  swiftness  of  a  tiger 
springing  on  its  prey.     At  this  instant  the  prisoner,  roused 


328  THE    VENDETTA. 

by  the  turmoil,  woke  up.  Ginevra  overset  her  stool,  spoke  a 
few  incoherent  sentences,  and  began  to  laugh ;  but  she  had 
folded  the  portrait  in  half  and  thrown  it  into  a  portfolio 
before  her  terrible  enemy  could  see  it.  The  girls  crowded 
round  the  easel ;  Servin  enlarged  in  a  loud  voice  on  the  beau- 
ties of  the  copy  on  which  his  favorite  pupil  was  just  now 
engaged ;  and  all  the  party  were  cheated  by  this  stratagem, 
excepting  Amelie,  who  placed  herself  behind  her  companions 
and  tried  to  open  the  portfolio  into  which  she  had  seen  the 
sketch  put.  Ginevra  seized  it  and  set  it  in  front  of  her 
without  a  word,  and  the  two  girls  gazed  at  each  other  in 
silence. 

"  Come,  young  ladies,  to  your  places  !  "  said  Servin.  "  If 
you  want  to  know  as  much  as  Mademoiselle  di  Piombo,  you 
must  not  be  always  talking  of  fashions  and  balls,  and  trifling 
so  much." 

When  the  girls  had  all  returned  to  their  easels,  the  master 
sat  down  by  Ginevra. 

"Was  it  not  better  that  this  mystery  should  be  discovered 
by  me  than  by  any  one  else?"  said  the  Italian  girl  in  a  low 
tone. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  painter.  "You  are  patriotic;  but 
even  if  you  had  not  been,  you  are  still  the  person  to  whom 
I  should  intrust  it." 

The  master  and  pupil  understood  each  other,  and  Ginevra 
was  not  now  afraid  to  ask,  "  Who  is  he  !  " 

"An  intimate  friend  of  Labedoyere's ;  the  man  who,  next 
to  the  unfortunate  colonel,  did  most  to  effect  a  junction  be- 
tween the  Seventh  and  the  Grenadiers  of  Elba.  He  was  a 
major  in  the  Guards,  and  has  just  come  back  from  Waterloo." 

"Why  have  you  not  burnt  his  uniform  and  shako,  and  put 
him  into  civilian  dress?  "  asked  Ginevra  vehemently. 

"  Some  clothes  are  to  be  brought  for  him  this  evening." 

"  You  should  have  shut  up  the  studio  for  a  few  days." 

"  He  is  going  away." 


THE    VENDETTA.  329 

"Does  he  wish  to  die?"  said  tlie  girl.  "Let  him  stay 
with  you  during  these  first  days  of  the  storm,  Paris  is  the 
only  place  in  France  where  a  man  may  be  safely  hidden.  Is 
he  a  friend  of  yours?  "  she  added. 

"  No.  He  has  no  claim  to  my  regard  but  his  misfortunes. 
This  is  how  he  fell  into  my  hands ;  my  father-in-law,  who 
had  rejoined  his  regiment  during  this  campaign,  met  the  poor 
young  man,  and  saved  him  very  cleverly  from  those  who  have 
arrested  Labedoyere.  He  wanted  to  defend  him,  like  a 
madman  !  " 

"  And  do  you  call  him  so  !  "  cried  Ginevra,  with  a  glance 
of  surprise  at  the  painter,  who  did  not  speak  for  a  mo- 
ment. 

"My  father-in-law  is  too  closely  watched  to  be  able  to 
keep  any  one  in  his  house,"  he  went  on.  "He  brought 
him  here  by  night  last  week,  I  hoped  to  hide  him  from 
every  eye  by  keeping  him  in  this  corner,  the  only  place  in 
the  house  where  he  can  be  safe." 

"If  I  can  be  of  any  use,  command  me,"  said  Ginevra. 
"I  know  Marshal  Feltre." 

"  Well,  we  shall  see,"  replied  the  painter. 

This  conversation  had  lasted  too  long  not  to  be  remarked 
by  all  the  other  pupils.  Servin  left  Ginevra,  came  back 
to  each  easel,  and  gave  such  long  lessons  that  he  was  still 
upstairs  when  the  clock  struck  the  hour  at  which  his  pupils 
usually  left. 

"You  have  forgotten  your  bag,  mademoiselle,"  cried  the 
professor,  running  after  the  young  lady,  who  condescended  to 
act  the  spy  to  gratify  her  hatred. 

The  inquisitive  pupil  came  back  for  the  bag,  expressing 
some  surprise  at  her  own  carelessness  ;  but  Servin's  attention 
was  to  her  additional  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  mystery 
which  was  undoubtedly  a  serious  one.  She  had  already 
planned  what  should  follow,  and  could  say,  like  the  Abb6 
Vertot,  "  I  have  laid  my  siege."     She  ran  downstairs  noisily. 


330  THE    VENDETTA. 

and  violently  slammed  the  door  leading  to  Servin's  rooms, 
that  it  might  be  supposed  she  had  gone  out ;  but  she 
softly  went  upstairs  again,  and  hid  behind  the  door  of  the 
studio. 

When  the  painter  and  Ginevra  supposed  themselves  alone, 
he  tapped  in  a  particular  manner  at  the  door  of  the  attic, 
which  at  once  opened  on  its  rusty,  creaking  hinges.  The 
Italian  girl  saw  a  tall  and  well-built  youth,  whose  imperial 
uniform  set  her  heart  beating.  The  officer  carried  his  arm  in 
a  sling,  and  his  pale  face  told  of  acute  suffering.  He  started 
at  seeing  her,  a  stranger.  Amelie,  who  could  see  nothing, 
was  afraid  to  stay  any  longer ;  but  she  had  heard  the  creaking 
of  ihe  door,  and  that  was  enough.     She  silently  stole  away. 

•'  Fear  nothing,"  said  the  painter.  "  Mademoiselle  is  the 
daughter  of  the  Emperor's  most  faithful  friend,  the  Baron  di 
Piombo." 

The  young  officer  felt  no  doubt  of  Ginevra's  loyalty  when 
once  he  had  looked  at  her. 

**  You  are  wounded  !  "   she  said. 

"  Oh,  it  is  nothing,  mademoiselle ;  the  cut  is  healing,"  re- 
plied the  young  officer. 

At  this  moment  the  shrill  and  piercing  tones  of  men  in  the 
street  came  up  to  the  studio,  crying  out,  "This  is  the  sen- 
tence which  condemns  to  death "     All  three  shuddered. 

The  soldier  was  the  first  to  hear  a  name  at  which  he  turned 
pale. 

"  Labedoyere  !  "  he  exclaimed,  dropping  on  to  a  stool. 

They  looked  at  each  other  in  silence.  Drops  of  sweat  gath- 
ered on  the  young  man's  livid  brow ;  with  a  gesture  of  despair 
he  clutched  the  black  curls  of  his  hair,  resting  his  elbow  on 
Ginevra's  easel. 

"  After  all,"  said  he,  starting  to  his  feet,  "  Labedoydre  and 
I  knew  what  we  were  doing.  We  knew  the  fate  that  awaited 
us  if  we  triumphed  or  if  we  failed.  He  is  dying  for  the 
cause,  while  I  am  in  hiding " 


THE    VENDETTA.  331 

He  hurried  towards  the  studio  door;  but  Ginevra,  more 
nimble  than  he,  rushed  forward  and  stopped  the  way. 

"Can  you  restore  the  Emperor?"  she  said.  *'Do  you 
think  you  can  raise  the  giant  again,  when  he  could  not  keep 
his  feet?" 

"What  then  is  to  become  of  me?"  said  the  refugee, 
addressing  the  two  friends  whom  chance  had  sent  him.  **  I 
have  not  a  relation  in  the  world  ;  Labedoyere  was  my  friend 
and  protector,  I  am  now  alone  ;  to-morrow  I  shall  be  exiled 
or  condemned ;  I  have  never  had  any  fortune  but  my  pay  ;  I 
spent  my  last  crown-piece  to  come  and  snatch  Labedoyere 
from  death  and  get  him  away.  Death  is  an  obvious  necessity 
to  me.  When  a  man  is  determined  to  die,  he  must  know 
how  to  sell  his  head  to  the  executioner.  I  was  thinking  just 
now  that  an  honest  man's  life  is  well  worth  that  of  two 
traitors,  and  that  a  dagger-thrust,  judiciously  placed,  may  give 
one  immortality.  " 

This  passion  of  despair  frightened  the  painter,  and  even 
Ginevra,  who  fully  understood  the  young  man.  The  Italian 
admired  the  beautiful  head  and  the  delightful  voice,  of  which 
the  accents  of  rage  scarcely  disguised  the  sweetness ;  then 
she  suddenly  dropped  balm  on  all  the  hapless  man's  wounds. 

"  Monsieur  !  "  said  she,  "as  to  your  pecuniary  difficulties, 
allow  me  to  offer  you  the  money  I  myself  have  saved.  My 
father  is  rich  ;  I  am  his  only  child  ;  he  loves  me,  and  I  am 
quite  sure  he  will  not  blame  me.  Have  no  scruples  in  accept- 
ing it ;  our  wealth  comei  from  the  Emperor,  we  have  nothing 
which  is  not  the  bounty  of  his  munificence.  Is  it  not  grati- 
tude to  help  one  of  his  faithful  soldiers  ?  So  take  this  money 
with  as  little  ceremony  as  I  make  about  offering  it.  It  is 
only  money,"  she  added  in  a  scornful  tone.  "Then,  as  to 
friends — you  will  find  friends  !  "  And  she  proudly  raised  her 
head,  while  her  eyes  shone  with  unwonted  brilliancy.  "  The 
head  which  must  fall  to-morrow — the  mark  of  a  dozen  guns — 
saves  yours,"  she  went  on.     "Wait  till  this  storm  is  over. 


332  THE    VENDETTA. 

and  you  can  take  service  in  a  foreign  land  if  you  are  not  for- 
gotten, or  in  the  French  army  if  you  are." 

In  the  comfort  offered  by  a  woman  there  is  a  delicacy  of 
feeling  which  always  has  a  touch  of  something  motherly, 
something  far-seeing  and  complete;  but  when  such  words 
of  peace  and  hope  are  seconded  by  grace  of  gesture,  and 
the  eloquence  which  comes  from  the  heart,  above  all,  when 
the  comforter  is  beautiful,  it  is  hard  for  a  young  man  to  resist. 
The  young  colonel  inhaled  love  by  every  sense.  A  faint  flush 
tinged  his  white  cheeks,  and  his  eyes  lost  a  little  of  the 
melancholy  that  dimmed  them  as  he  said,  in  a  strange  tone 
of  voice,  "  You  are  an  angel  of  goodness  !  But,  Labedoyere  !" 
he  added,  "  Labedoyere  !  " 

At  this  cry  they  all  three  looked  at  each  other,  speechless, 
and  understood  each  other.  They  were  friends,  not  of  twenty 
minutes,  but  of  twenty  years. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Servin,  "can  you  save  him?  " 

"  I  can  avenge  him." 

Ginevra  was  thrilled.  Though  the  stranger  was  handsome, 
his  appearance  had  not  moved  her.  The  gentle  pity  that 
women  find  in  their  heart  for  suffering  which  is  not  ignoble 
had,  in  Ginevra,  stifled  every  other  emotion  ;  but  to  hear  a 
cry  of  revenge,  to  find  in  this  fugitive  an  Italian  soul  and 
Corsican  magnanimity  !  This  was  too  much  for  her ;  she 
gazed  at  the  officer  with  respectful  emotion,  which  powerfully 
stirred  her  heart.  It  was  the  first  time  a  man  had  ever  made 
her  feel  so  strongly.  Like  all  women,  it  pleased  her  to  im- 
agine that  the  soul  of  this  stranger  must  be  in  harmony  with 
the  remarkable  beauty  of  his  features  and  the  fine  proportions 
of  his  figure,  which  she  admired  as  an  artist.  Led  by  chance 
curiosity  to  pity,  from  pity  to  eager  interest,  she  now  from 
interest  had  reached  sensations  so  strong  and  deep  that  she 
thought  it  rash  to  remain  there  any  longer. 

"Till  to-morrow,"  she  said,  leaving  her  sweetest  smile 
with  the  officer,  to  console  him. 


THE    VENDETTA.  -     333 

As  he  saw  that  smile,  which  threw  a  new  light,  as  it  were, 
on  Ginevra's  face,  the  stranger  for  a  moment  forgot  all  else. 

"To-morrow,"  he  repeated  sadly.  "To-morrow,  Labe- 
doyere " 

Ginevra  turned  to  him  and  laid  a  finger  on  her  lips,  looking 
at  him  as  though  she  would  say,  "Be  calm,  be  prudent." 

Then  the  young  man  exclaimed  :  "  O  Dio  !  Chi  non  vorrei 
vivere  dopo  averla  veduta  .' "  ("  O  God  !  who  would  not  live 
after  having  seen  her  !  ")  The  peculiar  accent  with  which  he 
spoke  the  words  startled  Ginevra. 

"You  are  a  Corsican  !  "  she  exclaimed,  coming  back  to 
him,  her  heart  beating  with  gladness. 

"  I  was  born  in  Corsica,"  he  replied  ;  "but  I  was  taken  to 
Genoa  when  very  young ;  and,  as  soon  as  I  was  of  an  age  to 
enter  the  army,  I  enlisted." 

The  stranger's  handsome  person,  the  transcendent  charm 
he  derived  from  his  attachment  to  the  Emperor,  his  wound, 
his  misfortunes,  even  his  danger,  all  vanished  before  Ginevra's 
eyes,  or  rather  all  were  fused  in  one  new  and  exquisite  senti- 
ment. This  refugee  was  a  son  of  Corsica,  and  spoke  its  be- 
loved tongue.  In  a  minute  the  girl  stood  motionless,  spell- 
bound by  a  magical  sensation.  She  saw  before  her  eyes  a 
living  picture  to  which  a  combination  of  human  feeling  and 
chance  lent  dazzling  hues.  At  Servin's  invitation  the  officer 
had  taken  his  seat  on  an  ottoman,  the  painter  had  untied  the 
string  which  supported  his  guest's  arm,  and  was  now  undoing 
the  bandages  in  order  to  dress  the  wound.  Ginevra  shuddered 
as  she  saw  the  long  wide  gash,  made  by  a  sabre-cut,  on  the 
young  man's  forearm,  and  gave  a  little  groan.  The  stranger 
looked  up  at  her  and  began  to  smile.  There  was  something 
very  touching  that  went  to  the  soul  in  Servin's  attentive  care 
as  he  removed  the  lint  and  touched  the  tender  flesh,  while 
the  wounded  man's  face,  though  pale  and  sickly,  expressed 
pleasure  rather  than  suffering  as  he  looked  at  the  young  girl. 

An  artist  could  not  help  admiring  the  antithesis  of  senti- 


384  THE    VENDETTA. 

ments,  and  the  contrast  of  color  between  the  whiteness  of  the 
linen  and  the  bare  arm  and  the  officer's  blue  and  red  coat. 
Soft  dusk  had  now  fallen  on  the  studio,  but  a  last  sunbeam 
shone  in  on  the  spot  where  the  refugee  was  sitting,  in  such  a 
way  that  his  pale,  noble  face,  his  black  hair,  his  uniform  were 
all  flooded  with  light.  This  simple  effect  the  superstitious 
Italian  took  for  an  omen  of  good-luck.  The  stranger  seemed 
to  her  a  celestial  messenger  who  had  spoken  to  her  in  the 
language  of  her  native  land,  and  put  her  under  the  spell  of 
childish  memories ;  while  in  her  heart  a  feeling  had  birth  as 
fresh  and  pure  as  her  first  age  of  innocence.  In  a  very  short 
instant  she  stood  pensive,  lost  in  infinite  tliought ;  then  she 
blushed  to  have  betrayed  her  absence  of  mind,  exchanged  a 
swift,  sweet  look  with  the  officer,  and  made  her  escape,  seeing 
him  still. 

The  next  day  there  was  no  painting  lesson  ;  Ginevra  could 
come  to  the  studio,  and  the  prisoner  could  be  with  his  fellow- 
countrywoman.  Servin,  who  had  a  sketch  to  finish,  allowed 
the  officer  to  sit  there  while  he  played  guardian  to  the  two 
young  people  who  frequently  spoke  in  Corsican.  The  poor 
soldier  told  of  his  sufferings  during  the  retreat  from  Moscow; 
for,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  he  had  found  himself  at  the 
passage  of  the  Beresina,  alone  of  all  his  regiment,  having 
lost  in  his  comrades  the  only  men  who  could  care  for  him,  an 
orphan.  He  described,  in  words  of  fire,  the  great  disaster  of 
Waterloo. 

His  voice  was  music  to  the  Italian  girl.  Brought  up  in 
Corsican  ways,  Ginevra  was,  to  some  extent,  a  child  of 
nature ;  falsehood  was  unknown  to  her,  and  she  gave  herself 
up  without  disguise  to  her  impressions,  owning  them,  or 
rather  letting  them  be  seen  without  the  trickery,  the  mean 
and  calculating  vanity  of  the  Parisian  girl.  During  this  day 
she  remained  more  than  once,  her  palette  in  one  hand,  a 
brush  in  the  other,  while  the  brush  was  undipped  in  the  colors 
on  the  palette ;  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  officer's  face,  her  lips 


THE    VENDETTA.  335 

slightly  parted,  she  sat  listening,  ready  to  lay  on  the  touch 
which  was  not  given.  She  was  not  surprised  to  find  such 
sweetness  in  the  young  man's  eyes,  for  she  felt  her  own  soften 
in  spite  of  her  determination  to  keep  them  severe  and  cold. 
Thus,  for  hours,  she  painted  with  resolute  attention,  not  rais- 
ing her  head  because  he  was  there  watching  her  work.  The 
first  time  he  sat  down  to  gaze  at  her  in  silence,  she  said  to 
him  in  an  agitated  voice,  after  a  long  pause,  "  Does  it  amuse 
you,  then,  to  look  on  at  painting?" 

That  day  she  learned  that  his  name  was  Luigi.  Before 
they  parted  it  was  agreed  that  if  any  important  political 
events  should  occur  on  the  days  when  the  studio  was  open, 
Ginevra  was  to  inform  him  by  singing  in  an  undertone  cer- 
tain Italian  airs. 

On  the  following  day  Mademoiselle  Thirion  informed  all 
her  companions,  as  a  great  secret,  that  Ginevra  di  Piombo 
had  a  lover — a  young  man  who  came  during  the  hours  de- 
voted to  lessons — to  hide  in  the  dark  closet  of  the  studio. 

"You,  who  take  her  part,"  said  she  to  Mademoiselle 
Roguin,  "watch  her  well,  and  you  will  see  how  she  spends 
her  time." 

So  Ginevra  was  watched  with  diabolical  vigilance.  Her 
songs  were  listened  to,  her  glances  spied.  At  moments  when 
she  believed  that  no  one  saw  her,  a  dozen  eyes  were  inces- 
santly centred  on  her.  And  being  forewarned,  the  girls 
interpreted  in  their  true  sense  the  agitations  which  passed 
across  the  Italian's  radiant  face,  and  her  snatches  of  song, 
and  the  attention  with  which  she  listened  to  the  muffled 
sounds  which  she  alone  could  hear  through  the  partition. 

By  the  end  of  a  week,  only  Laure,  of  the  fifteen  students, 
had  resisted  the  temptation  to  scrutinize  Luigi  through  the 
crack  in  the  panel,  or,  by  an  instinct  of  weakness,  still  de- 
fended the  beautiful  Corsican  girl.  Mademoiselle  Roguin 
wanted  to  make  her  wait  on  the  stairs  at  the  hour  when  they 
all  left,  to  prove  to  her  the  intimacy  between  Ginevra  and  the 


836  THE   VENDETTA. 

handsome  young  man  by  finding  them  together ;  but  she  re- 
fused to  condescend  to  an  espionage  which  curiosity  could  not 
justify,  and  thus  became  an  object  of  general  reprobation. 

Ere  long  the  daughter  of  the  gentleman  usher  thought  it 
unbecoming  in  her  to  work  in  the  studio  of  a  painter  whose 
opinions  were  tainted  with  patriotism  or  Bonapartism — which 
at  that  time  were  regarded  as  one  and  the  same  thing ;  so  she 
came  no  more  to  Servin's.  Though  Amelie  forgot  Ginevra, 
the  evil  she  had  sown  bore  fruit.  Insensibly,  by  chance,  for 
gossip  or  out  of  prudery,  the  other  damsels  informed  their 
mothers  of  the  strange  adventure  in  progress  at  the  studio. 
One  day  Mathilde  Roguin  did  not  come;  the  next  time 
another  was  absent ;  at  last  the  three  or  four  pupils,  who  had 
still  remained,  came  no  more.  Ginevra  and  her  little  friend. 
Mademoiselle  Laure,  were  for  two  or  three  days  the  sole  occu- 
pants of  the  deserted  studio. 

The  Italian  did  not  observe  the  isolation  in  which  she  was 
left,  and  did  not  even  wonder  at  the  cause  of  her  companions' 
absence.  Having  devised  the  means  of  communicating  with 
Luigi,  she  lived  in  the  studio  as  in  a  delightful  retreat,  secluded 
in  the  midst  of  the  world,  thinking  only  of  the  officer,  and  of 
the  dangers  which  threatened  him.  This  young  creature, 
though  sincerely  admiring  those  noble  characters  who  would 
not  be  false  to  their  political  faith,  urged  Luigi  to  submit  at 
once  to  royal  authority,  in  order  to  keep  him  in  France,  while 
Luigi  refused  to  submit,  that  he  might  not  have  to  leave  his 
hiding-place. 

If,  indeed,  passions  only  have  their  birth  and  grow  up  under 
the  influence  of  romantic  clauses,  never  had  so  many  cir- 
cumstances occurred  to  link  two  beings  by  one  feeling.  Gi- 
nevra's  regard  for  Luigi,  and  his  for  her,  thus  made  greater 
progress  in  a  month  than  a  fashionable  friendship  can  make 
in  ten  years  in  a  drawing-room.  Is  not  adversity  the  touch- 
stone of  character  ?  Hence  Ginevra  could  really  appreciate 
Luigi,  and  know  him,  and  they  soon  felt  a  reciprocal  esteem. 


THE    VENDETTA.  337 

Ginevra,  who  was  older  than  Luigi,  found  it  sweet  to  be  courted 
by  a  young  man  already  so  great,  so  tried  by  fortune,  who 
united  the  experience  of  a  man  with  the  graces  of  youth. 
Luigi,  on  his  part,  felt  an  unspeakable  delight  in  allowing 
himself  to  be  apparently  protected  by  a  girl  of  five-and-twenty. 
Was  it  not  a  proof  of  love  ?  The  union  in  Ginevra  of  pride 
and  sweetness,  of  strength  and  weakness,  had  an  irresistible 
charm ;  Luigi  was  indeed  completely  her  slave.  In  short, 
they  were  already  so  deeply  in  love  that  they  felt  no  need 
either  to  deny  it  themselves  nor  to  tell  it. 

One  day,  towards  evening,  Ginevra  heard  the  signal  agreed 
on.  Luigi  tapped  on  the  woodwork  with  a  pin,  so  gently  as  to 
make  no  more  noise  than  a  spider  attaching  its  thread — thus 
asking  if  he  might  come  out.  She  glanced  round  the  studio, 
did  not  see  little  Laure,  and  answered  the  summons  ;  but  as  the 
door  was  opened,  Luigi  caught  sight  of  the  girl,  and  hastily 
retreated.  Ginevra,  much  surprised,  looked  about  her,  saw 
Laure,  and,  going  up  to  her  easel,  said,  "  You  are  staying  very 
late,  dear.  And  that  head  seems  to  me  finished ;  there  is  only 
a  reflected  light  to  put  in  on  that  lock  of  hair." 

"It  would  be  very  kind  of  you,"  said  Laure,  in  a  tremu- 
lous voice,  "  if  you  would  correct  this  copy  for  me;  I  should 
have  something  of  your  doing  to  keep." 

"Of  course  I  will,"  said  Ginevra,  sure  of  thus  dismissing 
her.  "  I  thought,"  she  added,  as  she  put  in  a  few  light 
touches,  "  that  you  had  a  long  way  to  go  home  from  the 
studio." 

"Oh!  Ginevra,  I  am  going  away  for  good,"  cried  the 
girl,  sadly. 

"You  are  leaving  Monsieur  Servin  ?  "  asked  the  Italian, 
not  seeming  affected  by  her  words,  as  she  would  have  been  a 
month  since. 

"  Have  you  not  noticed,  Ginevra,  that  for  some  time  there 
has  been  nobody  here  but  you  and  I  ?  " 

"It  is  true,"  replied  Ginevra,  suddenly  struck  as  by  a  remi- 
22 


338  THE    VENDETTA. 

niscence.  **  Are  they  ill,  or  going  to  be  married,  or  are  all 
their  fathers  employed  now  at  the  palace  ?  *  * 

"They  have  all  left  Monsieur  Servin,"  said  Laure. 

"And  why?" 

"On  your  account,  Ginevra." 

"  Mine  !  "  repeated  the  Corsican,  rising,  with  a  threatening 
brow,  and  a  proud  sparkle  in  her  eyes. 

"  Oh,  do  not  be  angry,  dear  Ginevra,"  Laure  piteously 
exclaimed.  "But  my  mother  wishes  that  I  should  leave  too. 
All  the  young  ladies  said  that  you  had  an  intrigue;  that 
Monsieur  Servin  had  lent  himself  to  allowing  a  young  man 
who  loves  you  to  stay  in  the  dark  closet ;  but  I  never  be- 
lieved these  calumnies,  and  did  not  tell  my  mother.  Last 
evening  Madame  Roguin  met  my  mother  at  a  ball,  and  asked 
her  whether  she  still  sent  me  here.  When  mamma  said 
'Yes,'  she  repeated  all  those  girls'  tales.  Mamma  scolded 
me  well ;  she  declared  I  must  have  known  it  all,  and  that  I 
had  failed  in  the  confidence  of  a  daughter  in  her  mother  by 
not  telling  her.  Oh,  my  dear  Ginevra,  I,  who  always  took 
you  for  my  model,  how  grieved  I  am  not  to  be  allowed  to 
stay  on  with  you " 

' '  We  shall  meet  again  in  the  world  ;  young  women  get 
married,"  said  Ginevra. 

"  When  they  are  rich,"  replied  Laure. 

"  Come  to  see  me,  my  father  has  wealth " 

"Ginevra,"  Laure  went  on,  much  moved,  "Madame  Ro- 
guin and  my  mother  are  coming  to-morrow  to  see  Monsieur 
Servin,  and  complain  of  his  conduct.  At  least  let  him  be 
prepared." 

A  thunderbolt  falling  at  her  feet  would  have  astonished 
Ginevra  less  than  this  announcement. 

"  What  could  it  matter  to  them?  "  she  innocently  asked. 

"Every  one  thinks  it  very  wrong.  Mamma  says  it  is 
quite  improper." 

"  And  you,  Laure,  what  do  you  think  about  it?" 


THE   VENDETTA.  d3d 

The  girl  looked  at  Ginevra,  and  their  hearts  met.  Laure 
could  no  longer  restrain  her  tears ;  she  threw  herself  on  her 
friend's  neck  and  kissed  her.  At  this  moment  Servin  came 
in. 

**  Mademoiselle  Ginevra,"  he  said,  enthusiastically,  *'  I  have 
finished  my  picture,  it  is  being  varnished.  But  what  is  the 
matter  ?  All  the  young  ladies  are  making  holiday,  it  would 
seem,  or  are  gone  into  the  country." 

Laure  wiped  away  her  tears,  took  leave  of  Servin,  and  went 
away. 

"The  studio  has  been  deserted  for  some  days,"  said  Gi- 
nevra, "  and  those  young  ladies  will  return  no  more." 

"Pooh!" 

"  Nay,  do  not  laugh,"  said  Ginevra,  "  listen  to  me.  I  am 
the  involuntary  cause  of  your  loss  of  repute." 

The  artist  smiled,  and  said,  interrupting  his  pupil,  "My 
repute  ?     But  in  a  few  days  my  picture  will  be  exhibited." 

"  It  is  not  your  talent  that  is  in  question,"  said  the  Italian 
girl ;  "  but  your  morality.  The  young  ladies  have  spread  a 
report  that  Luigi  is  shut  up  here,  ana  that  you — lent  yourself 
to  our  love-making." 

"There  is  some  truth  in  that,  mademoiselle,"  replied  the 
professor.  "The  girls'  mothers  are  airified  prudes,"  he  went 
on.  "  If  they  had  but  come  to  me,  everything  would  have 
been  explained.  But  what  do  I  care  for  such  things?  Life  is 
too  short !  " 

And  the  painter  snapped  his  fingers  in  the  air. 

Luigi,  who  had  heard  part  of  the  conversation,  came  out 
of  his  cupboard. 

"You  are  losing  all  your  pupils,"  he  cried,  "and  I  shall 
have  been  your  ruin  !  " 

The  artist  took  his  hand  and  Ginevra's  and  joined  them. 
"  Will  you  marry  each  other,  my  children  ?  "  he  asked,  with 
touching  bluntness.  They  both  looked  down,  and  their 
silence  was  their  first  mutual  confession  of  love.     "  Well," 


S40  THE    VENDETTA. 

said  Servin,  "and  you  will  be  happy,  will  you  not?  Can 
anything  purchase  such  happiness  as  that  of  two  beings  like 
you?" 

"I  am  rich,"  said  Ginevra,  "if  you  will  allow  me  to 
indemnify  you " 

"  Indemnify  !  "  Servin  broke  in.  "  Why,  as  soon  as  it  is 
known  that  I  have  beea  the  victim  of  a  few  little  fools,  and 
that  I  have  sheltered  a  fugitive,  all  the  Liberals  in  Paris  will 
send  me  their  daughters  !  Perhaps  I  shall  be  in  your  debt 
then." 

Luigi  grasped  his  protector's  hand,  unable  to  speak  a 
word ;  but  at  last  he  said,  in  a  broken  voice,  "  To  you  I 
shall  owe  all  my  happiness." 

"Be  happy;  I  unite  you,"  said  the  painter  with  comic 
unction,  laying  his  hands  on  the  heads  of  the  lovers. 

This  pleasantry  put  an  end  to  their  emotional  mood.  They 
looked  at  each  other,  and  all  three  laughed.  The  Italian 
girl  wrung  Luigi's  hand  with  a  passionate  grasp,  and  with  a 
simple  impulse  worthy  of  her  Corsican  traditions. 

"Ah,  but,  my  dear  children,"  said  Servin,  "you  fancy 
that  now  everything  will  go  on  swimmingly  ?  Well,  you  are 
mistaken."     They  looked  at  him  in  amazement. 

"  Do  not  be  alarmed  ;  I  am  the  only  person  inconveni- 
enced by  your  giddy  behavior.  But  Madame  Servin  is  the 
pink  of  propriety,  and  I  really  do  not  know  how  we  shall 
settle  matters  with  her." 

"  Heavens  !  I  had  forgotten.  To-morrow  Madame  Roguin 
and  Laure's  mother  are  coming  to  you " 

"  I  understand  !  "  said  the  painter,  interrupting  her. 

"  But  you  can  justify  yourself,"  said  the  girl,  with  a  toss  of 
her  head  of  emphatic  pride.  "  Monsieur  Luigi,"  and  she 
turned  to  him  with  an  arch  look,  "  has  surely  no  longer  an 
antipathy  for  the  King's  government?  Well,  then,"  she 
went  on,  after  seeing  him  smile,  "  to-morrow  morning  I  shall 
address  a  petition  to  one  of  the  most  influential  persons  at 


THE    VENDETTA.  341 

the  ministry  of  war,  a  man  who  can  refuse  the  Baron  di 
Piombo's  daughter  nothing.  We  will  obtain  a  tacit  pardon 
for  Captain  Luigi — for  they  will  not  recognize  your  grade  as 
colonel.  And  you,"  she  added,  speaking  to  Servin,  "may 
annihilate  the  mammas  of  my  charitable  young  companions 
by  simply  telling  them  the  truth." 

"  You  are  an  angel  !  "  said  Servin. 

While    this   scene  was   going   on  at  the  studio,  Ginevra's 
father  and  mother  were  impatiently  expecting  her  return. 

"It  is  six  o'clock,  and  Ginevra  is  not  yet  home,"  said 
Bartolomeo. 

"  She  was  never  so  late  before,"  replied  his  wife. 

The  old  people  looked  at  each  other  with  all  the  signs  of 
very  unusual  anxiety.  Bartolomeo,  too  much  excited  to  sit 
still,  rose  and  paced  the  room  twice,  briskly  enough  for  a 
man  of  seventy-seven.  Thanks  to  a  strong  constitution,  he 
had  changed  but  little  since  the  day  of  his  arrival  at  Paris, 
and  tall  as  he  was,  he  was  still  upright.  His  hair,  thin  and 
white  now,  had  left  his  head  bald,  a  broad  and  bossy  skull 
which  gave  token  of  great  strength  and  firmness.  His  face, 
deeply  furrowed,  had  grown  full  and  wide,  with  the  pale 
complexion  that  inspires  veneration.  The  fire  of  a  passionate 
nature  still  lurked  in  the  unearthly  glow  of  his  eyes,  and  the 
brows,  which  were  not  quite  white,  preserved  their  terrible 
mobility.  The  aspect  of  the  man  was  severe,  but  it  could  be 
seen  that  Bartolomeo  had  the  right  to  be  so.  His  kindness 
and  gentleness  were  known  only  to  his  wife  and  daughter. 
In  his  official  position,  or  before  strangers,  he  never  set  aside 
the  majesty  which  time  had  lent  to  his  appearance ;  and  his 
habit  of  knitting  those  thick  brows,  of  setting  every  line  in 
his  face,  and  assuming  a  Napoleonic  fixity  of  gaze,  made  him 
seem  as  cold  as  marble. 

In  the  course  of  his  political  life  he  had  been  so  generally 
feared  that  he  was  thought  unsociable ;  but  it  is  not  difficult 
to  find  the  causes  of  such  a  reputation.     Piombo's  life,  habits. 


342  THE    VENDETTA. 

and  fidelity  were  a  censure  on  most  of  the  courtiers.  Not- 
withstanding the  secret  missions  intrusted  to  his  discretion, 
which  to  any  other  man  would  have  proved  lucrative,  he  had 
not  more  than  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year  in  government 
securities.  And  when  we  consider  the  low  price  of  stock 
under  the  Empire,  and  Napoleon's  liberality  to  those  of  his 
faithful  adherents  who  knew  how  to  ask,  it  is  easy  to  perceive 
that  the  Baron  di  Piombo  was  a  man  of  stern  honesty ;  he 
owed  his  Baron's  plumage  only  to  the  necessity  of  bearing  a 
title  when  sent  by  Napoleon  to  a  foreign  court. 

Bartolomeo  had  always  professed  implacable  hatred  of  the 
traitors  whom  Napoleon  had  gathered  about  him,  believing 
he  could  win  them  over  by  his  victories.  It  was  he — so  it 
was  said — who  took  three  steps  towards  the  door  of  the  Em- 
peror's room,  after  advising  him  to  get  rid  of  three  men  then 
in  France,  on  the  day  before  he  set  out  on  his  famous  and 
brilliant  campaign  of  1814.  Since  the  second  return  of  the 
Bourbons,  Bartolomeo  had  ceased  to  wear  the  ribbon  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor.  No  man  ever  offered  a  finer  image  of  the 
old  Republicans,  the  incorruptible  supporters  of  the  Empire, 
who  survived  as  the  living  derelicts  of  the  two  most  vigorous 
governments  the  world  has  perhaps  ever  seen.  If  Baron  di 
Piombo  had  displeased  some  courtiers,  Daru,  Drouot,  and  Car- 
not  were  his  friends.  And,  indeed,  since  Waterloo,  he  cared 
no  more  about  other  political  figures  than  for  the  puffs  of  smoke 
he  blew  from  his  cigar. 

With  the  moderate  sum  which  Madame,  Napoleon's  mother, 
had  paid  him  for  his  estates  in  Corsica,  Bartolomeo  di  Piombo 
had  acquired  the  old  Hotel  de  Portenduere,  in  which  he  made 
no  alterations.  Living  almost  always  in  official  residences  at 
the  cost  of  the  government,  he  had  resided  in  this  mansion 
only  since  the  catastrophe  of  Fontainebleau.  Like  all  simple 
folks  of  lofty  character,  the  Baron  and  his  wife  cared  nothing 
for  external  splendor;  they  still  used  the  old  furniture  they 
had  found  in  the  house.     The  reception-rooms  of  this  dwell- 


THE    VENDETTA.  S43 

ing,  lofty,  gloomy,  and  bare,  the  huge  mirrors  set  in  old  gilt 
frames  almost  black  with  age,  the  furniture  from  the  time  of 
Louis  XIV.,  were  in  keeping  with  Bartolomeo  and  his  wife — 
figures  worthy  of  antiquity.  Under  the  Empire,  and  during 
the  Hundred  Days,  while  holding  offices  that  brought  hand- 
some salaries,  the  old  Corsican  had  kept  house  in  grand  style, 
but  rather  to  do  honor  to  his  position  than  with  a  view  to 
display. 

His  life  and  that  of  his  wife  and  daughter  were  so  frugal, 
so  quiet,  that  their  modest  fortune  sufficed  for  their  needs. 
To  them  their  child  Ginevra  outweighed  all  the  riches  on 
earth.  And  when,  in  May,  1814,  Baron  di  Piombo  resigned 
his  place,  dismissed  his  household,  and  locked  his  stable- 
doors,  Ginevra,  as  simple  and  unpretentious  as  her  parents, 
had  not  a  regret.  Like  all  great  souls,  she  found  luxury  in 
strength  of  feeling,  as  she  sought  happiness  in  solitude  and 
work. 

And  these  three  loved  each  other  too  much  for  the  externals 
of  life  to  have  any  value  in  their  eyes.  Often — and  especially 
since  Napoleon's  second  and  fearful  fall — Bartolomeo  and  his 
wife  spent  evenings  of  pure  delight  in  listening  to  Ginevra  as 
she  played  the  piano  or  sang.  To  them  there  was  an  im- 
mense mystery  of  pleasure  in  their  daughter's  presence,  in  her 
lightest  word ;  they  followed  her  with  their  eyes  with  tender 
solicitude;  they  heard  her  step  in  the  courtyard,  however 
lightly  she  trod.  Like  lovers,  they  would  all  three  sit  silent 
for  hours,  hearing,  better  than  in  words,  the  eloquence  of 
each  other's  soul.  This  deep  feeling,  the  very  life  of  the  two 
old  people,  filled  all  their  thoughts.  Not  three  lives  were 
here,  but  one,  which,  like  the  flame  on  a  hearth,  burnt  up  in 
three  tongues  of  fire. 

Though  now  and  then  memories  of  Napoleon's  bounty  and 
misfortunes,  or  the  politics  of  the  day,  took  the  place  of  their 
constant  preoccupation,  they  could  talk  of  them  without 
breaking  their  community  of  thought.     For  did  not  Ginevra 


344  THE    VENDETTA. 

share  their  political  passions  ?  What  could  be  more  natural 
than  the  eagerness  with  which  they  withdrew  into  the  heart 
of  their  only  child  ?  Until  now  the  business  of  public  life 
had  absorbed  Baron  di  Piombo's  energies;  but  in  resigning 
office  the  Corsican  felt  the  need  of  throwing  his  energy  into 
the  last  feeling  that  was  left  to  him ;  and,  besides  the  tie  that 
bound  a  father  and  mother  to  their  daughter,  there  was, 
perhaps,  unknown  to  these  three  despotic  spirits,  a  powerful 
reason  in  the  fanaticism  of  their  reciprocal  devotion  ;  their 
love  was  undivided ;  Ginevra's  whole  heart  was  given  to  her 
father,  as  Piombo's  was  to  her;  and  certainly,  if  it  is  true 
that  we  are  more  closely  attached  to  one  another  by  our 
faults  than  by  our  good  qualities,  Ginevra  responded  wonder- 
fully to  all  her  father's  passions.  Herein  lay  the  single  defect 
of  this  threefold  existence.  Ginevra  was  wholly  given  over 
to  her  vindictive  impulses,  carried  away  by  them,  as  Barto- 
lomeo  had  been  in  his  youth.  The  Corsican  delighted  in 
encouraging  these  savage  emotions  in  his  daughter's  heart, 
exactly  as  a  lion  teaches  his  whelps  to  spring  on  their  prey. 
But  as  this  apprenticeship  to  revenge  could  only  be  carried 
out  under  the  parental  roof,  Ginevra  never  forgave  her  father 
anything ;  he  always  had  to  succumb.  Piombo  regarded 
these  factitious  quarrels  as  mere  childishness,  but  the  child 
thus  acquired  a  habit  of  domineering  over  her  parents.  In 
the  midst  of  these  tempests  which  Bartolomeo  loved  to  raise, 
a  tender  word,  a  look,  was  enough  to  soothe  their  angry 
spirits,  and  they  were  never  so  near  kissing  as  when  threaten- 
ing wrath. 

However,  from  the  age  of  about  five,  Ginevra,  growing 
wiser  than  her  father,  constantly  avoided  these  scenes.  Her 
faithful  nature,  her  devotion,  the  affection  which  governed  all 
her  thoughts,  and  her  admirable  good  sense,  had  gotten  the 
better  of  her  rages ;  still  a  great  evil  had  resulted  :  Ginevra 
lived  with  her  father  and  mother  on  a  footing  of  equality 
Tvhich  is  always  disastrous. 


THE    VENDETTA.  345 

To  complete  the  picture  of  all  the  changes  that  had  hap- 
pened to  these  three  persons  since  their  arrival  in  Paris, 
Piombo  and  his  wife,  people  of  no  education,  had  allowed 
Ginevra  to  study  as  she  would.  Following  her  girlish  fancy, 
she  had  tried  and  given  up  everything,  returning  to  each  idea, 
and  abandoning  each  in  turn,  until  painting  had  become  her 
ruling  passion ;  she  would  have  been  perfect  if  her  mother 
had  been  capable  of  directing  her  studies,  of  enlightening 
and  harmonizing  her  natural  gifts.  Her  faults  were  the  out- 
come of  the  pernicious  training  that  the  old  Corsican  had 
delighted  to  give  her. 

After  making  the  floor  creak  for  some  minutes  under  his 
feet,  the  old  man  rang  the  bell.     A  servant  appeared. 

"Go  to  meet  Mademoiselle  Ginevra,"  said  the  master. 

**  I  have  always  been  sorry  that  we  have  no  longer  a  carriage 
for  her,"  said  the  Baroness. 

"  She  would  not  have  one,"  replied  Piombo,  looking  at  his 
wife ;  and  she,  accustomed  for  twenty  years  to  obedience  as 
her  part,  cast  down  her  eyes. 

Tall,  thin,  pale,  and  wrinkled,  and  now  past  seventy,  the 
Baroness  was  exactly  like  the  old  woman  whom  Schnetz  intro- 
duces into  the  Italian  scenes  of  his  genre-pictures  ;  she  com- 
monly sat  so  silent  that  she  might  have  been  taken  for  a 
second  Mrs.  Shandy ;  but  a  word,  a  look,  a  gesture  would 
betray  that  her  feelings  had  all  the  vigor  and  freshness  of 
youth.  Her  dress,  devoid  of  smartness,  was  often  lacking  in 
taste.  She  usually  remained  passive,  sunk  in  an  armchair, 
like  a  Sultana  valideh,  waiting  for  or  admiring  Ginevra — her 
pride  and  life.  Her  daughter's  beauty,  dress,  and  grace 
seemed  to  have  become  her  own.  All  was  well  with  her  if 
Ginevra  were  content.  Her  hair  had  turned  white,  and  a  few 
locks  were  visible  above  her  furrowed  brow  and  at  the  side 
of  her  withered  cheeks. 

"For  about  a  fortnight  now,"  said  she,  "Ginevra  has 
been  coming  in  late,* 


346  THE    VENDETTA. 

"Jean  will  not  go  fast  enough,"  cried  the  impatient  old 
man,  crossing  over  the  breast  of  his  blue  coat ;  he  snatched 
up  his  hat,  crammed  it  on  his  head,  and  was  off. 

"You  will  not  get  far,"  his  wife  called  after  him. 

In  fact,  the  outer  gate  opened  and  shut,  and  the  old  mother 
heard  Ginevra's  steps  in  the  courtyard.  Bartolomeo  suddenly 
reappeared,  carrying  his  daughter  in  triumph,  while  she  strug- 
gled in  his  arms. 

"  Here  she  is  !  La  Ginevra,  la  Ginevrettina,  la  Ginevrina, 
la  Ginevrola,  la  Ginevretta,  la  Ginevra  bella !  "  the  old 
Baron  joyfully  exclaimed. 

**  Father !  you  are  hurting  me  !  " 

Ginevra  was  immediately  set  down  with  a  sort  of  respect. 
She  nodded  her  head  with  a  graceful  gesture  to  reassure  her 
mother,  who  was  alarmed,  and  to  convey  that  it  had  been 
only  an  excuse.  Then  the  Baroness'  pale,  dull  face  regained 
a  little  color,  and  even  a  kind  of  cheerfulness.  Piombo 
rubbed  his  hands  together  extremely  hard — the  most  certain 
symptom  of  gladness ;  he  had  acquired  the  habit  at  court 
when  seeing  Napoleon  in  a  rage  with  any  of  his  generals  or 
ministers  who  served  him  ill,  or  who  had  committed  some 
blunder.  When  once  the  muscles  of  his  face  were  relaxed, 
the  smallest  line  in  his  forehead  expressed  benevolence. 
These  two  old  folks  at  this  moment  were  exactly  like  droop- 
ing plants,  which  are  restored  to  life  by  a  little  water  after  a 
long  drought. 

"  Dinner,  dinner  !  "  cried  the  Baron,  holding  out  his  hand 
to  Ginevra,  whom  he  addressed  as  Signora  Piombellina, 
another  token  of  good  spirits,  to  which  his  daughter  replied 
with  a  smile. 

"By  the  way,"  said  Piombo,  as  they  rose  from  table,  "do 
you  know  that  your  mother  has  remarked  that  for  a  month 
past  you  have  stayed  at  the  studio  much  later  than  usual  ? 
Painting  before  parents,  it  would  seem." 

"  Oh,  dear  father " 


THE    VENDETTA,  347 

"  Ginevra  is  preparing  some  surprise  for  us,  no  doubt," 
said  the  mother, 

"  You  are  going  to  bring  me  a  picture  of  your  painting," 
cried  the  Corsican,  clapping  his  hands. 

**  Yes,  I  am  very  busy  at  the  studio,"  she  replied. 

"What  ails  you,  Ginevra?  you  are  so  pale,"  asked  her 
mother. 

"  No  !  "  exclaimed  the  girl  with  a  resolute  gesture.  "  No  ! 
it  shall  never  be  said  that  Ginevra  Piombo  ever  told  a  lie 
in  her  life." 

On  hearing  this  strange  exclamation,  Piombo  and  his  wife 
looked  at  their  daughter  with  surprise. 

**  I  love  a  young  man,"  she  added  in  a  broken  voice. 
Then,  not  daring  to  look  at  her  parents,  her  heavy  eyelids 
drooped  as  if  to  veil  the  fire  in  her  eyes. 

"Is  he  a  prince?"  asked  her  father  ironically;  but  his 
tone  of  voice  made  both  the  mother  and  daughter  tremble. 

"  No,  father,"  she  modestly  replied,  "  he  is  a  young  man 
of  no  fortune " 

"Then  is  he  so  handsome?" 

"  He  is  unfortunate," 

"What  is  he?" 

"  As  a  comrade  of  Lab^doyere's  he  was  outlawed,  home- 
less ;  Servin  hid  him,  and " 

"  Servin  is  a  good  fellow,  and  did  well,"  cried  Piombo. 
"  But  you,  daughter,  have  done  ill  to  love  any  man  but  your 
father " 

"Love  is  not  within  my  control,"  said  Ginevra,  gently. 

"I  had  flattered  myself,"  said  her  father,  "that  my  Gi- 
nevra would  be  faithful  to  me  till  my  death  ;  that  my  care  and 
her  mother's  would  be  all  she  would  have  known  ;  that  our 
tenderness  would  never  meet  with  a  rival  affection  in  her 
heart;  that " 

"  Did  I  ever  reproach  you  for  your  fanatical  devotion  to 
Napoleon  ?  "  said  Ginevra.     "  Have  you  never  loved  any  one 


S48  THE    VENDETTA. 

but  me  ?  Have  you  not  been  away  on  embassies  for  month.s 
at  a  time  ?  Have  I  not  borne  your  absence  bravely  ?  Life 
has  necessities  to  which  we  must  yield." 

"Ginevra!" 

**  No,  you  do  not  love  me  for  my  own  sake,  and  your  re- 
proaches show  intolerable  selfishness." 

"  And  you  accuse  your  father's  love  !  "  cried  Piombo  with 
flaming  looks, 

"Father,  I  will  never  accuse  you,"  replied  Ginevra,  more 
gently  than  her  trembling  mother  expected.  "  You  have  right 
on  the  side  of  your  egoism,  as  I  have  right  on  the  side  of  my 
love.  Heaven  is  my  witness  that  no  daughter  ever  better  ful- 
filled her  duty  to  her  parents.  I  have  never  known  anything 
but  love  and  happiness  in  what  many  daughters  regard  as 
obligations.  Now,  for  fifteen  years,  I  have  never  been  any- 
where but  under  your  protecting  wing,  and  it  has  been  a  very 
sweet  delight  to  me  to  charm  your  lives.  But  am  I  then 
ungrateful  in  giving  myself  up  to  the  joy  of  loving,  and  in 
wishing  for  a  husband  to  protect  me  after  you  ?  " 

"So  you  balance  accounts  with  your  father,  Ginevra!" 
said  the  old  man  in  ominous  tones. 

There  was  a  frightful  pause  ;  no  one  dared  to  speak.  Fi- 
nally, Bartolomeo  broke  the  silence  by  exclaiming  in  a  heart- 
rending voice  :  **  Oh,  stay  with  us ;  stay  with  your  old  father  ! 
I  could  not  bear  to  see  you  love  a  man.  Ginevra,  you  will 
not  have  long  to  wait  for  your  liberty " 

**  But,  my  dear  father,  consider ;  we  shall  not  leave  you, 
we  shall  be  two  to  love  you  ;  you  will  know  the  man  to  whose 
care  you  will  bequeath  me.  You  will  be  doubly  loved  by  me 
and  by  him — by  him,  being  part  of  me,  and  by  me  who  am 
wholly  he," 

"Oh,  Ginevra,  Ginevra!"  cried  the  Corsican,  clinching 
his  fists,  "why  were  you  not  married  when  Napoleon  had 
accustomed  me  to  the  idea,  and  introduced  dukes  and  counts 
as  your  suitors?" 


THE    VENDETTA.  349 

"They  only  loved  me  to  order,"  said  the  young  girl. 
"  Besides,  I  did  not  wish  to  leave  you ;  and  they  would  have 
taken  me  away  with  them." 

"You  do  not  wish  to  leave  us  alone,"  said  Piombo,  "  but 
if  you  marry  you  isolate  us.  I  know  you,  my  child,  you  will 
love  us  no  more.  Elisa,"  he  said,  turning  to  his  wife,  who 
sat  motionless  and,  as  it  were,  stupefied  ;  "  we  no  longer  have 
a  daughter  ;  she  wants  to  be  married." 

The  old  man  sat  down,  after  raising  his  hands  in  the  air  as 
though  to  invoke  God ;  then  he  remained  bent,  crushed  by 
his  grief.  Ginevra  saw  her  father's  agitation,  and  the  modera- 
tion of  his  wrath  pierced  her  to  the  heart ;  she  had  expected 
a  scene  and  furies ;  she  had  not  steeled  her  soul  against  his 
gentleness. 

"My  dear  father,"  she  said  in  an  appealing  voice,  "no, 
you  shall  never  be  abandoned  by  your  Ginevra.  But  love  me 
too  a  little  for  myself.  If  only  you  knew  how  he  loves  me  ! 
Ah,  he  could  never  bear  to  cause  me  pain  !  " 

"  What,  comparisons  already  !  "  cried  Piombo  in  a  terrible 
voice.  "  No,"  he  went  on,  "  I  cannot  endure  the  idea.  If 
he  were  to  love  you  as  you  deserve,  he  would  kill  me  ;  and  if 
he  were  not  to  love  you,  I  should  stab  him  !  " 

Piombo's  hands  were  trembling,  his  lips  trembled,  his  whole 
frame  trembled,  and  his  eyes  flashed  lightnings ;  Ginevra 
alone  could  meet  his  gaze  ;  for  then  her  eyes  too  flashed  fire, 
and  the  daughter  was  worthy  of  the  father. 

"  To  love  you  !  What  man  is  worthy  of  such  a  life  ?  "  he 
went  on.  "  To  love  you  as  a  father  even — is  it  not  to  live  in 
paradise?     Who  then  could  be  worthy  to  be  your  husband? " 

"  He,"  said  Ginevra.  "  He  of  whom  I  feel  myself  un- 
worthy." 

"He,"  echoed  Piombo  mechanically.     "  Who  ?     He  ?  " 

"The  man  I  love." 

"Can  he  know  you  well  enough  already  to  adore  you?" 
asked  her  father. 


360  THE   VENDETTA. 

"But,  father,"  said  Ginevra,  feeling  a  surge  of  impatience, 
**  even  if  he  did  not  love  me — so  long  as  I  love  him " 

"You  do  love  him  then?"  cried  Piombo.  Ginevra  gently 
bowed  her  head.     "You  love  him  more  than  you  love  me?" 

'•  The  two  feelings  cannot  be  compared,"  she  replied. 

"One  is  stronger  than  the  other?"  said  Piombo. 

"Yes,  I  think  so,"  said  Ginevra. 

"  You  shall  not  marry  him  !  "  cried  the  Corsican  in  a  voice 
that  made  the  windows  rattle. 

"  I  will  marry  him  !  "  replied  Ginevra  calmly. 

"Good  God!  "  cried  the  mother,  "how  will  this  quarrel 
end  ?    Santa  Virgina,  come  between  them  ! ' ' 

The  Baron,  who  was  striding  up  and  down  the  room,  came 
and  seated  himself.  An  icy  sternness  darkened  his  face ;  he 
looked  steadfastly  at  his  daughter,  and  said  in  a  gentle  and 
affectionate  voice,  "  Nay,  Ginevra — you  will  not  marry  him. 
Oh,  do  not  say  you  will,  this  evening.  Let  me  believe  that 
you  will  not.  Do  you  wish  to  see  your  father  on  his  knees 
before  you,  and  his  white  hairs  humbled.  I  will  beseech 
you ' ' 

"  Ginevra  Piombo  is  not  accustomed  to  promise  and  not  to 
keep  her  word,"  said  she ;  "  I  am  your  child." 

"  She  is  right,"  said  the  Baroness,  "  we  come  into  the  world 
to  marry." 

"And  so  you  encourage  her  in  disobedience,"  said  the 
Baron  to  his  wife,  who,  stricken  by  the  reproof,  froze  into  a 
statue. 

"It  is  not  disobedience  to  refuse  to  yield  to  an  unjust  com- 
mand," replied  Ginevra. 

"  It  cannot  be  unjust  when  it  emanates  from  your  father's 
lips,  my  child.  Why  do  you  rise  in  judgment  on  me?  Is 
not  the  repugnance  I  feel  a  counsel  from  on  high  ?  I  am  per- 
haps saving  you  from  some  misfortune." 

"  The  misfortune  would  be  that  he  should  not  love  me." 

"Always  he!" 


THE    VENDETTA.  351 

"Yes,  always,"  she  said.  "He  is  my  life,  my  joy,  my 
thought.  Even  if  I  obeyed  you,  he  would  be  always  in  my 
heart.  If  you  forbid  me  to  marry  him,  will  it  not  make  me 
hate  you?" 

"  You  love  us  no  longer  !  "  cried  Piorabo. 

"Oh  !  "  said  Ginevra,  shaking  her  head. 

"  Well,  then,  forget  him.     Be  faithful  to  us.     After  us 

you  understand " 

"Father,  would  you  make  me  wish  that  you  were  dead?" 
cried  Ginevra. 

"  I  shall  outlive  you ;  children  who  do  not  honor  their 
parents  die  early,"  cried  her  father  at  the  utmost  pitch  of 
exasperation. 

"  All  the  more  reason  for  marrying  soon  and  being  happy," 
said  she. 

This  coolness,  this  force  of  argument,  brought  Piombo's 
agitation  to  a  crisis ;  the  blood  rushed  violently  to  his  head, 
his  ftce  turned  purple.  Ginevra  shuddered ;  she  flew  like  a 
bird  on  to  her  father's  knees,  threw  her  arms  round  his  neck, 
stroked  his  hair,  and  exclaimed,  quite  overcome — 

"Oh,  yes,  let  me  die  first!  I  could  not  survive  you,  my 
dear,  kind  father." 

"Oh,  my  Ginevra,  my  foolish  Ginevretta ! "  answered 
Piombo,  whose  rage  melted  under  this  caress  as  an  icicle  melts 
in  the  sunshine. 

"It  was  time  you  should  put  an  end  to  the  matter,"  said 
the  Baroness  in  a  broken  voice. 

"Poor  mother!  " 

"Ah,  Ginevretta,  mia  Ginevra  bella  !  " 

And  the  father  played  with  his  daughter  as  if  she  were  a 
child  of  six ;  he  amused  himself  with  undoing  the  waving 
tresses  of  her  hair  and  dancing  her  on  his  knee ;  there  was 
dotage  in  his  demonstrations  of  tenderness.  Presently  his 
daughter  scolded  him  as  she  kissed  him,  and  tried,  half  in 
jest,  to  get  leave  to  bring  Luigi  to  the  house;  but,  jesting 


862  THE    VENDETTA. 

too,  her  father  refused.  She  sulked,  and  recovered  herself, 
and  sulked  again ;  then,  at  the  end  of  the  evening,  she  was 
only  too  glad  to  have  impressed  on  her  father  the  ideas  of  her 
love  for  Luigi  and  of  a  marriage  ere  long. 

Next  day  she  said  no  more  about  it ;  she  went  later  to  the 
studio  and  returned  early ;  she  was  more  affectionate  to  her 
father  than  she  had  ever  been,  and  showed  herself  grateful,  as 
if  to  thank  him  for  the  consent  to  her  marriage  he  seemed  to 
give  by  silence.  In  the  evening  she  played  and  sang  for  a 
long  time,  and  exclaimed  now  and  then,  "  This  nocturne 
requires  a  man's  voice!  "  She  was  an  Italian,  and  that  says 
everything. 

A  week  later  her  mother  beckoned  her ;  Ginevra  went,  and 
then  in  her  ear  she  whispered,  **  I  have  persuaded  your  father 
to  receive  him." 

"  Oh,  mother  !  you  make  me  very  happy." 

So  that  afternoon,  Ginevra  had  the  joy  of  coming  home  to 
her  father's  house  leaning  on  Luigi's  arm.  The  poor  officer 
came  out  of  his  hiding-place  for  the  second  time.  Ginevra's 
active  intervention  addressed  to  the  Due  de  Feltre,  then 
minister  of  war,  had  been  crowned  with  perfect  success. 
Luigi  had  just  been  reinstated  as  an  officer  on  the  reserve  list. 
This  was  a  very  long  step  towards  a  prosperous  future. 

Informed  by  Ginevra  of  all  the  difficulties  he  would  meet 
with  in  the  Baron,  the  young  officer  dared  not  confess  his 
dread  of  failing  to  please  him.  This  man,  so  brave  in  ad- 
versity, so  bold  on  the  field  of  battle,  quaked  as  he  thought 
of  entering  the  Piombos'  drawing-room.  Ginevra  felt  him 
tremble,  and  this  emotion,  of  which  their  happiness  was  the 
first  cause,  was  to  her  a  fresh  proof  of  his  love. 

"  How  pale  you  are  !  "  said  she,  as  they  reached  the  gate 
of  the  hotel. 

"Oh,  Ginevra!  If  ray  life  alone  were  at  stake "  ex- 
claimed Luigi,  nervously. 

Though  Bartolomeo  had  been  informed  by  his  wife  of  this 


THE    VENDETTA.  353 

official  introduction  of  his  daughter's  lover,  he  did  not  rise  to 
meet  him,  but  remained  in  the  armchair  he  usually  occupied, 
and  the  severity  of  his  countenance  was  icy. 

"  Father,"  said  Ginevra,  *'I  have  brought  you  a  gentleman 
whom  you  will  no  doubt  be  pleased  to  see.  Monsieur  Luigi, 
a  soldier,  who  fought  quite  close  to  the  Emperor  at  Mont- 
Saint- Jean " 

The  Baron  rose,  cast  a  furtive  glance  at  Luigi,  and  said  in 
a  sardonic  tone — 

"  Monsieur  wears  no  orders?" 

"  I  no  longer  wear  the  Legion  of  Honor,"  replied  Luigi 
bashfully,  and  he  humbly  remained  standing. 

Ginevra,  hurt  by  her  father's  rudeness,  brought  forward  a 
chair.  The  officer's  reply  satisfied  the  old  Republican. 
Madame  Piombo,  seeing  that  her  husband's  brows  were  re- 
covering their  natural  shape,  said,  to  revive  the  conversation, 
"  Monsieur  is  wonderfully  like  Nina  Porta.  Do  you  not  think 
that  he  has  quite  the  face  of  a  Porta?  " 

"Nothing  can  be  more  natural,"  replied  the  young  man, 
on  whom  Piombo's  flaming  eyes  were  fixed.  "  Nina  was  my 
sister." 

* '  You  are  Luigi  Porta  ?  ' '  asked  the  old  man. 

"Yes." 

Bartolomeo  di  Piombo  rose,  tottered,  was  obliged  to  lean 
on  a  chair,  and  looked  at  his  wife.  Elisa  Piombo  came  up  to 
him  ;  then  the  two  old  folks  silently  left  the  room,  arm  in  arm, 
with  a  look  of  horror  at  their  daughter.  Luigi  Porta,  quite 
bewildered,  gazed  at  Ginevra,  who  turned  as  white  as  a  marble 
statue,  and  remained  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  door  where 
her  father  and  mother  had  disappeared.  There  was  some- 
thing so  solemn  in  her  silence  and  their  retreat  that,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  perhaps,  a  feeling  of  fear  came  over  him. 
She  clasped  her  hands  tightly  together,  and  said  in  a  voice  so 
choked  that  it  would  have  been  inaudible  to  any  one  but  a 
lover,  "  How  much  woe  in  one  word  !  " 
23 


354  THE    VENDETTA. 

"In  the  name  of  our  love,  what  have  I  said?"  asked 
Luigi  Porta. 

"My  father  has  never  told  me  our  deplorable  history," 
she  replied.  "  And  when  we  left  Corsica  I  was  too  young  to 
know  anything  about  it." 

"Is  it  a  Vendetta?"  asked  Luigi,  trembling. 

"Yes.  By  questioning  my  mother  I  learned  that  the 
Porta  had  killed  my  brothers  and  burnt  down  our  house. 
My  father  then  massacred  all  your  family.  How  did  you 
survive,  you  whom  he  thought  he  had  tied  to  the  posts  of  a 
bed  before  setting  fire  to  the  house?  " 

"  I  do  not  know,"  replied  Luigi.  "  When  I  was  six  I  was 
taken  to  Genoa,  to  an  old  man  named  Colonna.  No  account 
of  my  family  was  ever  given  to  me ;  I  only  knew  that  I  was 
an  orphan,  and  penniless.  Colonna  was  like  a  father  to  me ; 
I  bore  his  name  till  I  entered  the  army;  then,  as  I  needed 
papers  to  prove  my  identity,  old  Colonna  told  me  that,  help- 
less as  I  was,  and  hardly  more  than  a  child,  I  had  enemies. 
He  made  me  promise  to  take  the  name  of  Luigi  only,  to 
evade  them." 

"Fly,  fly,  Luigi,"  cried  Ginevra.  "Yet,  stay;  I  must  go 
with  you.  So  long  as  you  are  in  my  father's  house  you  are 
safe.  As  soon  as  you  quit  it,  take  care  of  yourself.  You 
will  go  from  one  danger  to  another.  My  father  has  two 
Corsicans  in  his  service,  and  if  he  does  not  threaten  your 
life  they  will." 

"  Ginevra,"  he  said,  "and  must  this  hatred  exist  between 
us?" 

She  smiled  sadly  and  bowed  her  head.  But  she  soon  raised 
it  again  with  a  sort  of  pride,  and  said,  "  Oh,  Luigi,  our  feel- 
ings must  be  very  pure  and  true  that  I  should  have  the 
strength  to  walk  in  the  path  I  am  entering  on.  But  it  is  for 
the  sake  of  happiness  which  will  last  as  long  as  life,  is  it 
not?" 

Luigi  answered  only  with  a  smile,  and  pressed  her  hand. 


THE    VENDETTA.  355 

The  girl  understood  that  only  a  great  love  could  at  such  a 
moment  scorn  mere  protestations.  This  calm  and  con- 
scientious expression  of  Luigi's  feelings  seemed  to  speak  for 
their  strength  and  permanence.  The  fate  of  the  couple  was 
thus  sealed.  Ginevra  foresaw  many  painful  contests  to  be 
fought  out,  but  the  idea  of  deserting  Luigi — an  idea  which 
had  perhaps  floated  before  her  mind — at  once  vanished. 
His,  henceforth  and  for  ever,  she  suddenly  dragged  him  away 
and  out  of  the  house  with  a  sort  of  violence,  and  did  not  quit 
him  till  they  reached  the  house  where  Servin  had  taken  a 
humble  lodging  for  him. 

When  she  returned  to  her  father's  house  she  had  assumed 
the  serenity  which  comes  of  a  strong  resolve.  No  change  of 
manner  revealed  any  uneasiness.  She  found  her  parents 
ready  to  sit  down  to  dinner,  and  she  looked  at  them  with 
eyes  devoid  of  defiance  and  full  of  sweetness.  She  saw  that 
her  old  mother  had  been  weeping ;  at  the  sight  of  her  red 
eyelids  for  a  moment  her  heart  failed  her,  but  she  hid  her 
emotion.  Piombo  seemed  to  be  a  prey  to  anguish  too  keen, 
too  concentrated  to  be  shown  by  ordinary  means  of  expres- 
sion. The  servants  waited  on  a  meal  which  no  one  ate.  A 
horror  of  food  is  one  of  the  symptoms  indicative  of  a  great 
crisis  of  the  soul.  All  three  rose  without  any  one  of  them 
having  spoken  a  word.  When  Ginevra  was  seated  in  the 
great,  solemn  drawing-room,  between  her  father  and  mother, 
Piombo  tried  to  speak,  but  he  found  no  voice ;  he  tried  to 
walk  about,  but  found  no  strength  ;  he  sat  down  again  and 
rang  the  bell. 

"  Pietro,"  said  he  to  the  servant  at  last,  "light  the  fire,  I 
am  cold." 

Ginevra  was  shocked,  and  looked  anxiously  at  her  father. 
The  struggle  he  was  going  through  must  be  frightful ;  his  face 
looked  quite  changed.  Ginevra  knew  the  extent  of  the  danger 
that  threatened  her,  but  she  did  not  tremble;  while  the 
glances  that  Bartolomeo  cast  at  his  daughter  seemed  to  pro- 


356  THE    VENDETTA. 

claim  that  he  was  at  this  moment  in  fear  of  the  character 
whose  violence  was  his  own  work.  Between  these  two  every- 
thing must  be  in  excess.  And  the  certainty  of  the  possible 
change  of  feeling  between  the  father  and  daughter  filled  the 
Baroness*  face  with  an  expression  of  terror. 

**  Ginevra,  you  love  the  enemy  of  your  family,"  said 
Piombo  at  last,  not  daring  to  look  at  his  daughter. 

"That  is  true,"  she  replied. 

**  You  must  choose  between  him  and  us.  Our  Vendetta  is 
part  of  ourselves.  If  you  do  not  espouse  my  cause,  you  are 
not  of  my  family." 

"  My  choice  is  made,"  said  Ginevra,  in  a  steady  voice. 

His  daughter's  calmness  misled  Bartolomeo. 

"  Oh,  my  dear  daughter  !  "  cried  the  old  man,  whose 
eyelids  were  moist  with  tears,  the  first,  the  only  tears  he  ever 
shed  in  his  life. 

"I  shall  be  his  wife,"  she  said  abruptly. 

Bartolomeo  could  not  see  for  a  moment ;  but  he  recovered 
himself  and  replied,  "  This  marriage  shall  never  be  so  long 
as  I  live.  I  will  never  consent."  Ginevra  kept  silence. 
"  But,  do  you  understand,"  the  Baron  went  on,  "  that  I.uigi 
is  the  son  of  the  man  who  killed  your  brothers?" 

"  He  was  six  years  old  when  the  crime  was  committed ;  he 
must  be  innocent  of  it,"  she  answered. 

**  A  Porta  !  "  cried  Bartolomeo. 

"  But  how  could  I  share  this  hatred,"  said  the  girl  eagerly. 
"  Did  you  bring  me  up  in  the  belief  that  a  Porta  was  a 
monster?  Could  I  imagine  that  even  one  was  left  of  those 
you  had  killed  ?  Is  it  not  in  nature  that  you  should  make 
your  Vendetta  give  way  to  ray  feelings?  " 

"  A  Porta  !  "  repeated  Piombo.  "  If  his  father  had  found 
you  then  in  your  bed,  you  would  not  be  alive  now.  He 
would  have  dealt  you  a  hundred  deaths." 

"Possibly,"  she  said.  "  But  his  son  has  given  me  more 
than  life.     To  see  Luigi  is  a  happiness  without  which  I  cannot 


THE    VENDETTA.  357 

live.  Luigi  has  revealed  to  me  the  world  of  feeling.  I  have, 
perhaps,  seen  even  handsomer  faces  than  his,  but  none  ever 
charmed  me  so  much.  I  have,  perhaps,  heard  voices — no, 
no,  never  one  so  musical  !  Luigi  loves  me.  He  shall  be  my 
husband." 

"  Never  !  "  said  Piombo.  "  Ginevra,  I  would  sooner  see 
you  in  your  coffin  !  " 

The  old  man  rose,  and  paced  the  room  with  hurried  strides, 
uttering  fierce  words,  with  pauses  between  that  betrayed  all 
his  indignation. 

"  You  think,  perhaps,  that  you  can  bend  my  will  ?  Unde- 
ceive yourself.  I  will  rot  have  a  Porta  for  my  son-in-law. 
That  is  my  decision.  Never  speak  of  the  matter  again.  I 
am  Bartolomeo  di  Piombo,  do  you  hear,  Ginevra?  " 

"Do  you  attach  any  mysterious  meaning  to  the  words?" 
she  coldly  asked. 

"  They  mean  that  I  have  a  dagger,  and  that  I  do  not  fear 
the  justice  of  men.  We  Corsicans  settle  such  matters  with 
God." 

"  Well,"  said  the  girl,  "  I  am  Ginevra  di  Piombo,  and  I 
declare  that  in  six  months  I  will  be  Luigi  Porta's  wife.  You 
are  a  perfect  tyrant,  father,"  she  spiritedly  added,  after  an 
ominous  pause. 

Bartolomeo  clenched  his  fists,  and  struck  the  marble 
chimney-shelf. 

"  Ah  !  we  are  in  Paris  !  "  he  muttered. 

He  said  no  more,  but  folded  his  arms  and  bowed  his  head 
on  his  breast  3  nor  did  he  say  another  word  the  whole  even- 
ing. Having  asserted  her  will,  the  girl  affected  the  most 
complete  indifference ;  she  sat  down  to  the  piano,  sang, 
played  the  most  charming  music,  with  a  grace  and  feeling 
that  proclaimed  her  perfect  freedom  of  mind,  triumphing 
over  her  father,  whose  brow  showed  no  relenting.  The  old 
man  deeply  felt  this  tacit  insult,  and  at  that  moment  gathered 
the  bitter  fruits  of  the  education  he  had  given  his  daughter. 


368  THE    VENDETTA. 

Respect  is  a  barrier  which  protects  the  parents  and  the  children 
alike,  sparing  those  much  sorrow,  and  these  remorse. 

The  next  day,  as  Ginevra  was  going  out  at  the  hour  when 
she  usually  went  to  the  studio,  she  found  the  door  of  the 
house  closed  upon  her ;  but  she  soon  devised  means  for 
informing  Luigi  Porta  of  her  father's  severity.  A  waiting- 
woman,  who  could  not  read,  carried  to  the  young  officer  a 
letter  written  by  Ginevra.  For  five  days  the  lovers  contrived 
to  correspond,  thanks  to  the  plots  that  young  people  of  twenty- 
one  can  always  contrive. 

The  father  and  daughter  rarely  spoke  to  each  other.  Both 
had  in  the  bottom  of  their  hearts  an  element  of  hatred  ;  they 
suffered,  but  in  pride  and  silence.  Knowing  well  how  strong 
were  the  bonds  of  love  that  tied  them  to  each  other,  they 
tried  to  wrench  them  asunder,  but  without  success.  No  sweet 
emotion  ever  came,  as  it  had  been  wont,  to  give  light  to  Bar- 
tolomeo's  severe  features  when  he  gazed  at  his  Ginevra,  and 
there  was  something  savage  in  her  expression  when  she  looked 
at  her  father.  Reproach  sat  on  her  innocent  brow ;  she  gave 
herself  up,  indeed,  to  thoughts  of  happiness,  but  remorse 
sometimes  dimmed  her  eyes.  It  was  not,  indeed,  difficult  to 
divine  that  she  would  never  enjoy  in  peace  a  felicity  which 
made  her  parents  unhappy.  In  Bartolomeo,  as  in  his  daugh- 
ter, all  the  irresolution  arising  from  their  native  goodness 
of  heart  was  doomed  to  shipwreck  on  their  fierce  pride  and 
the  revengeful  spirit  peculiar  to  Corsicans.  They  encouraged 
each  other  in  their  wrath,  and  shut  their  eyes  to  the  future. 
Perhaps,  too,  each  fancied  that  the  other  would  yield. 

On  Ginevra's  birthday,  her  mother,  heart-broken  at  this 
disunion,  which  was  assuming  a  serious  aspect,  planned  to 
reconcile  the  father  and  daughter  by  an  appeal  to  the  mem- 
ories of  this  anniversary.  They  were  all  three  sitting  in  Bar- 
tolomeo's  room.  Ginevra  guessed  her  mother's  purpose  from 
the  hesitation  written  in  her  face,  and  she  smiled  sadly.  At 
this  instant  a  servant  announced  two  lawyers,  accompanied 


TUB    VENDE'lTA.  359 

by  several  witnesses,  who  all  came  into  the  room.  Bartolomeo 
stared  at  the  men,  whose  cold,  set  faces  were  in  themselves  an 
insult  to  souls  so  fevered  as  those  of  the  three  principal  actors 
in  this  scene.  The  old  man  turned  uneasily  to  his  daughter, 
and  saw  on  her  face  a  smile  of  triumph  which  led  him  to 
suspect  some  catastrophe ;  but  he  affected,  as  savages  do,  to 
preserve  a  deceitful  rigidity,  while  he  looked  at  the  two  law- 
yers with  a  sort  of  apathetic  curiosity.  At  a  gesture  of  invita- 
tion from  the  old  man  the  visitors  took  seats. 

"  Monsieur  is  no  doubt  Baron  di  Piombo  ?  "  said  the  elder 
of  the  two  lawyers. 

Bartolomeo  bowed.  The  lawyer  gave  his  head  a  little  jerk, 
looked  at  Ginevra  with  the  sly  expression  of  a  bailiff  nabbing  a 
debtor ;  then  he  took  out  his  snuff-box,  opened  it,  and,  taking 
a  pinch  of  snuff,  absorbed  it  in  little  sniffs  while  considering 
the  opening  words  of  his  discourse ;  and  while  pronouncing 
them  he  made  constant  pauses,  an  oratorical  effect  which  a 
dash  in  printing  represents  very  imperfectly. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  he,  "  I  am  Monsieur  Roguin,  notary  to 
mademoiselle,  your  daughter,  and  we  are  here — my  colleague 
and  I — to  carry  out  the  requirements  of  the  law,  and — to  put 
an  end  to  the  divisions  which — as  it  would  seem — have  arisen 
— between  you  and  mademoiselle,  your  daughter — on  the 
question — of — her — marriage  with  Monsieur  Luigi  Porta." 
This  speech,  made  in  a  pedantic  style,  seemed,  no  doubt,  to 
Monsieur  Roguin  much  top  fine  to  be  understood  all  in  a 
moment,  and  he  stopped,  while  looking  at  Bartolomeo  with 
an  expression  peculiar  to  men  of  business,  and  which  is  half- 
way between  servility  and  familiarity.  Lawyers  are  so  much 
used  to  feign  interest  in  the  persons  to  whom  they  speak  that 
their  features  at  last  assume  a  grimace  which  they  can  put  on 
and  off  with  their  o^cxdX  pallium.  This  caricature  of  friendli- 
ness, so  mechanical  as  to  be  easily  detected,  irritated  Barto- 
lomeo to  such  a  pitch  that  it  took  all  his  self-control  not  to 
throw  Monsieur  Roguin  out  of  the  window;  a  look  of  fury 


360  THE    VENDETTA. 

emphasized  his  wrinkles,  and  on  seeing  this  the  notary  said  to 
himself:   "  I  am  making  an  effect." 

"But,"  he  went  on  in  a  honeyed  voice,  "Monsieur  le 
Baron,  on  such  occasions  as  these,  our  intervention  must 
always,  at  first,  be  essentially  conciliatory.  Have  the  kind- 
ness to  listen  to  me.  It  is  in  evidence  that  Mademoiselle 
Ginevra  Piombo — has  to-day — attained  the  age  at  which, 
after  a  '  respectful  summons,'  she  may  proceed  to  the  solemni- 
zation of  her  marriage — notwithstanding  that  her  parents  re- 
fuse their  consent.  Now — it  is  customary  in  families — which 
enjoy  a  certain  consideration — which  move  in  society — and 
preserve  their  dignity — people,  in  short,  to  whom  it  is  im- 
portant not  to  let  the  public  into  the  secret  of  their  differences 
— and  who  also  do  not  wish  to  do  themselves  an  injury  by 
blighting  the  future  lives  of  a  young  husband  and  wife — for 
that  is  doing  themselves  an  injury.  It  is  the  custom,  I  was 
saying — in  such  highly  respectable  families — not  to  allow  the 
serving  of  such  a  summons — which  must  be — which  always  is 
a  record  of  a  dispute — which  at  last  ceases  to  exist.  For  as 
soon,  monsieur,  as  a  young  lady  has  recourse  to  a  '  respectful 
summons  '  she  proclaims  a  determination  so  obstinate — that 
her  father — and  her  mother,"  he  added,  turning  to  the 
Baroness,  "can  have  no  further  hope  of  seeing  her  follow 
their  advice.  Hence  the  parental  prohibition  being  nullified 
— in  the  first  place  by  this  fact — and  also  by  the  decision  of 
the  law — it  is  always  the  case  that  a  wise  father,  after  finally 
remonstrating  with  his  child,  allows  her  the  liberty " 

Monsieur  Roguin  paused,  perceiving  that  he  might  talk  on 
for  two  hours  without  extracting  an  answer;  and  he  also  felt 
a  peculiar  agitation  as  he  looked  at  the  man  he  was  trying  to 
convince.  An  extraordinary  change  had  come  over  Barto- 
lomeo's  countenance.  All  its  lines  were  set,  giving  him  an 
expression  of  indescribable  cruelty,  and  he  glared  at  the 
lawyer  like  a  tiger.  The  Baroness  sat  mute  and  passive. 
Ginevra,  calm  and  resolute,  was  waiting ;  she  knew  that  the 


THE    VENDETTA.  361 

notary's  voice  was  stronger  than  hers,  and  she  seemed  to  have 
made  up  her  mind  to  keep  silence.  At  the  moment  when 
Roguin  ceased  speaking,  the  scene  was  so  terrible  that  the 
witnesses,  as  strangers,  trembled ;  never,  perhaps,  had  such  a 
silence  weighed  on  them.  The  lawyers  looked  at  each  other 
as  if  in  consultation,  then  they  rose  and  went  to  the  window. 
"  Did  you  ever  come  across  clients  made  to  this  pattern  ?  " 
asked  Roguin  of  his  colleague. 

"  There  is  nothing  to  be  gotten  out  of  him,"  said  the  younger 
man.  "  In  your  place  I  should  read  the  summons  and  nothing 
more.  The  old  man  is  no  joke ;  he  is  choleric,  and  you  will 
gain  nothing  by  trying  to  discuss  matters  with  him." 

Monsieur  Roguin  therefore  read  aloud  from  a  sheet  of 
stamped  paper  a  summons  ready  drawn  up,  and  coldly  asked 
Bartolomeo  what  his  reply  was. 

**  Are  there  laws  in  France  then  that  upset  a  father's  au- 
thority !  "  asked  the  Corsican. 

"Monsieur "  said  Roguin  smoothly. 

"That  snatch  a  child  from  her  father?" 

"  Monsieur " 

**  That  rob  an  old  man  of  his  last  consolation  ?  " 

"  Monsieur,  your  daughter  belongs  to  you  only  so  long 

as " 

"That  kill  her?" 
"Monsieur,  allow  me." 

There  is  nothing  more  hideous  than  the  cold-blooded  and 
close  reasoning  of  a  lawyer  in  the  midst  of  such  scenes  of 
passion  as  they  are  usually  mixed  up  with.  The  faces  which 
Piombo  saw  seemed  to  him  to  have  escaped  from  hell ;  his 
cold  and  concentrated  rage  knew  no  bounds  at  the  moment 
when  his  little  opponent's  calm  and  almost  piping  voice 
uttered  that  fatal,  "Allow  me."  He  sprang  at  along  dagger 
which  hung  from  a  nail  over  the  chimney-piece,  and  rushed 
at  his  daughter.  The  younger  of  the  two  lawyers  and  one  of 
the  witnesses  threw  themselves  between  him  and  Ginevra,  but 


362  THE    VENDETTA. 

Bartolomeo  brutally  knocked  them  over,  showing  them  a  face 
of  fire  and  glowing  eyes  which  seemed  more  terrible  than  the 
flash  of  the  dagger.  When  Ginevra  found  herself  face  to  face 
with  her  father  she  looked  at  him  steadily  with  a  glance  of 
triumph,  went  slowly  towards  him,  and  knelt  down. 

"No,  no!  I  cannot!"  he  exclaimed,  flinging  away  the 
weapon  with  such  force  that  it  stuck  fast  in  the  wainscot. 

"  Mercy,  then,  mercy  !  "  said  she.  "  You  hesitate  to  kill 
me,  but  you  refuse  me  life.  Oh,  father,  I  never  loved  you 
so  well — but  give  me  Luigi.  I  ask  your  consent  on  my 
knees  ;  a  daughter  may  humble  herself  to  her  father.  My 
Luigi,  or  I  must  die  !  " 

The  violent  excitement  that  choked  her  prevented  her  say- 
ing more ;  she  found  no  voice  j  her  convulsive  eff"orts  plainly 
showed  that  she  was  between  life  and  death.  Bartolomeo 
roughly  pushed  her  away. 

"Go,"  he  said,  "the  wife  of  Luigi  Porta  cannot  be  a 
Piombo.  I  no  longer  have  a  daughter  !  I  cannot  bring  my- 
self to  curse  you,  but  I  give  you  up.  You  have  now  no 
father.  My  Ginevra  Piombo  is  buried  then  !  "  he  exclaimed 
in  a  deep  tone,  as  he  clutched  at  his  heart.  "Go,  I  say, 
wretched  girl,"  he  went  on  after  a  moment's  silence.  "  Go, 
and  never  let  me  see  you  again." 

He  took  Ginevra  by  the  arm,  and  in  silence  led  her  out  of 
the  house. 

"  Luigi !  "  cried  Ginevra,  as  she  went  into  the  humble 
room  where  the  officer  was  lodged,  "  my  Luigi,  we  have  no 
fortune  but  our  love." 

"  We  are  richer  than  all  the  kings  of  the  earth,"  he  replied. 

"My  father  and  mother  have  cast  me  out,"  said  she  with 
deep  melancholy. 

"  I  will  love  you  for  them." 

"  Shall  we  be  very  happy  I  "  she  cried,  with  a  gayety  that 
had  something  terrible  in  it. 

"  And  for  ever  !  "  he  answered,  clasping  her  to  his  heart. 


THE    VENDETTA.  363 

On  the  day  following  that  on  which  Ginevra  had  quitted 
her  father's  house,  she  went  to  beg  Madame  Servin  to  grant 
her  protection  and  shelter  till  the  time,  fixed  by  law,  when 
she  could  be  married  to  Luigi.  There  began  her  apprentice- 
ship to  the  troubles  which  the  world  strews  in  the  way  of 
those  who  do  not  obey  its  rules.  Madame  Servin,  who  was 
greatly  distressed  at  the  injury  that  Ginevra's  adventure  had 
done  the  painter,  received  the  fugitive  coldly,  and  explained 
to  her  with  circumspect  politeness  that  she  was  not  to  count 
on  her  support.  Too  proud  to  insist,  but  amazed  at  such 
selfishness,  to  which  she  was  unaccustomed,  the  young  Corsi- 
can  went  to  lodge  in  a  furnished  house  as  near  as  possible  to 
Luigi.  The  son  of  the  Portas  spent  all  his  days  at  the  feet 
of  his  beloved  ;  his  youthful  love,  and  the  purity  of  his  mind, 
dispersed  the  clouds  which  her  father's  reprobation  had  set- 
tled on  the  banished  daughter's  brow ;  and  he  painted  the 
future  as  so  fair  that  she  ended  by  smiling,  though  she  could 
not  forget  her  parent's  severity. 

One  morning  the  maid  of  the  house  brought  up  to  her 
several  trunks  containing  dress-stuffs,  linen,  and  a  quantity  of 
things  needful  for  a  young  woman  settling  for  the  first  time. 
In  this  she  recognized  the  foreseeing  kindness  of  a  mother; 
for  as  she  examined  these  gifts  she  found  a  purse  into  which 
the  Baroness  had  put  some  money  belonging  to  Ginevra, 
adding  all  her  own  savings.  With  the  money  was  a  letter,  in 
which  she  implored  her  daughter  to  give  up  her  fatal  purpose 
of  marrying,  if  there  were  yet  time.  She  had  been  obliged, 
she  said,  to  take  unheard-of  precautions  to  get  this  small 
assistance  conveyed  to  Ginevra;  she  begged  her  not  to  accuse 
her  of  hardness  if  henceforth  she  left  her  neglected ;  she 
feared  she  could  do  no  more  for  her  ;  she  blessed  her,  hoped 
she  might  find  happiness  in  this  fatal  marriage  if  she  per- 
sisted, and  assured  her  that  her  one  thought  was  of  her  be- 
loved daughter.  At  this  point  tears  had  blotted  out  many 
words  of  the  letter. 


364  THE    VENDETTA. 

"Oh,  mother  !  "  cried  Ginevra,  quite  overcome. 

She  felt  a  longing  to  throw  herself  at  her  mother's  feet,  to 
see  her,  to  breathe  the  blessed  air  of  home  ;  she  was  on  the 
point  of  rushing  off  when  Luigi  came  in.  She  looked  at  him, 
and  filial  affection  vanished,  her  tears  were  dried,  she  could 
not  find  it  in  her  to  leave  the  unhappy  and  loving  youth. 
To  be  the  sole  hope  of  a  noble  soul,  to  love  and  to  desert  it 
— such  a  sacrifice  is  treason  of  which  no  young  heart  is  capa- 
ble. Ginevra  had  the  generosity  to  bury  her  grief  at  the 
bottom  of  her  soul. 

At  last  the  day  of  their  wedding  came.  Ginevra  found  no 
one  near  her.  Luigi  took  advantage  of  the  moment  when 
she  was  dressing  to  go  in^search  of  the  necessary  witnesses  to 
their  marriage  act.  These  were  very  good  people.  One  of 
them,  an  ex-quartermaster  of  Hussars,  had,  when  in  the  army, 
found  himself  under  such  obligations  to  Luigi  as  an  honest 
man  never  forgets  ;  he  had  become  a  job-master,  and  had 
several  hackney  carriages.  The  other,  a  builder,  was  the 
proprietor  of  the  house  where  the  young  couple  were  to  lodge. 
Each  of  these  brought  a  friend,  and  all  four  came  with  Luigi 
to  fetch  the  bride.  Unaccustomed  as  they  were  to  social 
grimacing,  seeing  nothing  extraordinary  in  the  service  they 
were  doing  to  Luigi,  these  men  were  decently  but  quite  plainly 
dressed,  and  there  was  nothing  to  proclaim  the  gay  escort  of 
a  wedding.  Ginevra  herself  was  very  simply  clad,  to  be  in 
keeping  with  her  fortune ;  but,  nevertheless,  there  was  some- 
thing so  noble  and  impressive  in  her  beauty  that  at  the  sight 
of  her  the  words  died  on  the  lips  of  the  good  folks  who  had 
been  prepared  to  pay  her  some  compliment ;  they  bowed 
respectfully,  and  she  bowed  in  return  ;  they  looked  at  her  in 
silence,  and  could  only  admire  her.  Joy  can  only  express 
itself  among  equals.  So,  as  fate  would  have  it,  all  was 
gloomy  and  serious  around  the  lovers ;  there  was  nothing  to 
reflect  their  happiness. 

The  church  and  the  mayor  were  not  far  away.     The  two 


THE    VEXDETTA.  365 

Corsicans,  followed  by  the  four  witnesses  required  by  law, 
decided  to  go  on  foot,  with  a  simplicity  which  robbed  this 
great  event  of  social  life  of  all  parade.  In  the  courtyard 
of  the  mayor  they  found  a  crowd  of  carriages,  which  an- 
nounced a  numerous  party  within.  They  went  upstairs  and 
entered  a  large  room,  where  the  couples  who  were  to  be  made 
happy  on  this  particular  day  were  awaiting  the  mayor  of  that 
quarter  of  Paris  with  considerable  impatience.  Ginevra  sat 
down  by  Luigi  on  the  end  of  a  long  bench,  and  their  wit- 
nesses remained  standing  for  lack  of  seats.  Two  brides, 
pompously  arrayed  in  white,  loaded  with  ribbons  and  lace 
and  pearls,  and  crowned  with  bunches  of  orange-blossoms  of 
which  the  sheeny  buds  quivered  under  their  veils,  were  sur- 
rounded by  their  families  and  accompanied  by  their  mothers, 
to  whom  they  turned  with  looks  at  once  timid  and  satisfied ; 
every  eye  reflected  their  happiness,  and  every  face  seemed  to 
exhale  benedictions.  Fathers,  witnesses,  brothers  and  sisters 
were  coming  and  going  like  a  swarm  of  insects  playing  in  a 
sunbeam  which  soon  must  vanish.  Every  one  seemed  to 
understand  the  preciousness  of  this  brief  hour  in  life  when 
the  heart  stands  poised  between  two  hopes — the  wishes  of  the 
past,  the  promise  of  the  future. 

At  this  sight  Ginevra  felt  her  heart  swell,  and  she  pressed 
Luigi's  arm.  He  gave  her  a  look,  and  a  tear  rose  to  the 
young  man's  eye;  he  never  saw  more  clearly  than  at  that 
moment  all  that  his  Ginevra  had  sacrificed  for  him.  That 
rare  tear  made  the  young  girl  forget  the  forlorn  position  in 
which  she  stood.  Love  poured  treasures  of  light  between  the 
lovers,  who  from  that  moment  saw  nothing  but  each  other  in 
the  midst  of  the  confusion. 

Their  witnesses,  indifferent  to  the  ceremony,  were  quietly 
discussing  business  matters. 

"  Oats  are  very  dear,"  said  the  ex-quartermaster  to  the 
mason. 

**  They  have  not  yet  gone  up  so  high  as  plaster  in  proper- 


366  THE    VENDETTA. 

tion,"  said  the  builder.  And  they  walked  round  the  large 
room. 

"What  a  lot  of  valuable  time  we  are  losing  here !  "  im- 
patiently exclaimed  the  mason,  putting  a  huge  silver  watch 
back  into  his  pocket. 

Luigi  and  Ginevra,  clinging  to  each  other,  seemed  to  be 
but  one  person.  A  poet  would  certainly  have  admired  these 
two  heads,  full  of  the  same  feeling,  alike  in  coloring,  melan- 
choly and  silent  in  the  presence  of  the  two  buzzing  wedding- 
parties,  of  four  excited  families  sparkling  with  diamonds  and 
flowers,  and  full  of  gaiety  which  seemed  a  mere  effervescence. 
All  the  joys  of  which  these  loud  and  gorgeous  groups  made  a 
display,  Luigi  and  Ginevra  kept  buried  at  the  bottom  of  their 
hearts.  On  one  side  was  the  coarse  clamor  of  pleasure ;  on 
the  other  the  delicate  silence  of  happy  souls :  earth  and 
heaven. 

But  Ginevra  trembled,  and  could  not  altogether  shake  off 
her  woman's  weakness.  Superstitious,  as  Italians  are,  she  re- 
garded this  contrast  as  an  omen,  and  in  the  depths  of  her 
heart  she  harbored  a  feeling  of  dread,  as  unconquerable  as 
her  love  itself 

Suddenly  an  official  in  livery  threw  open  the  double  doors; 
silence  fell,  and  his  voice  sounded  like  a  yelp  as  he  called  out 
the  names  of  Monsieur  Luigi  Porta  and  Mademoiselle  Ginevra 
Piombo.  This  incident  caused  the  pair  some  embarrassment. 
The  celebrity  of  the  name  of  Piombo  attracted  attention ; 
the  spectators  looked  about  them  for  a  wedding-party  which 
must  surely  be  a  splendid  one.  Ginevra  rose ;  her  eyes,  thun- 
derous with  pride,  subdued  the  crowd ;  she  took  Luigi's  arm 
and  went  forward  with  a  firm  step,  followed  by  the  witnesses. 
A  murmur  of  astonishment,  which  rapidly  grew  louder,  and 
whispering  on  all  sides,  reminded  Ginevra  that  the  world  was 
calling  her  to  account  for  her  parents*  absence.  Her  father's 
curse  seemed  to  be  pursuing  her. 

"  Wait  for  the  families  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom,"  said 


THE    VENDETTA.  367 

the  mayor  to  the  clerk,  who  at  once  began  to  read  the  con- 
tracts. 

"The  father  and  mother  enter  a  protest,"  said  the  clerk 

indifferently. 

"On  both  sides?"  asked  the  mayor. 

"The  man  is  an  orphan." 

"  Where  are  the  witnesses  ?  " 

"They  are  here,"  said  the  clerk,  pointing  to  the  four  mo- 
tionless and  silent  men  who  stood  like  statues,  with  their  arms 
crossed. 

"But  if  the  parents  protest ?"  said  the  mayor. 

"The  'respectful  summons*  has  been  presented  in  due 
form,"  replied  the  man,  rising  to  place  the  various  documents 
in  the  functionary's  hands. 

This  discussion  in  an  office  seemed  to  brand  them,  and  in 
a  few  words  told  a  whole  history.  The  hatred  of  the  Porta 
and  the  Piombo,  all  these  terrible  passions,  were  thus  recorded 
on  a  page  of  a  register,  as  the  annals  of  a  nation  may  be  in- 
scribed on  a  tombstone  in  a  few  lines,  nay,  even  in  a  single 
name :  Robespierre  or  Napoleon.  Ginevra  was  trembling. 
Like  the  dove  crossing  the  waters,  which  had  no  rest  for  her 
foot  but  in  the  ark,  her  eyes  could  take  refuge  only  in  Luigi's, 
for  all  else  was  cold  and  sad.  The  mayor  had  a  stern,  disap- 
proving look,  and  his  clerk  stared  at  the  couple  with  ill-natured 
curiosity.  Nothing  ever  had  less  the  appearance  of  a  festivity. 
Like  all  the  other  events  of  human  life  when  they  are  stripped 
of  their  accessories,  it  was  a  simple  thing  in  itself,  immense  in 
its  idea. 

After  some  questions,  to  which  they  replied,  the  mayor 
muttered  a  few  words,  and  then,  having  signed  their  names  in 
the  register,  Luigi  and  Ginevra  were  man  and  wife.  The 
young  Corsicans,  whose  union  had  all  the  poetry  which  genius 
has  consecrated  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  went  away  between  two 
lines  of  jubilant  relations  to  whom  they  did  not  belong,  and 
who  were  out  of  patience  at  the  delay  caused  by  a  marriage 


368  THE    VENDETTA. 

apparently  so  forlorn.  When  the  girl  found  herself  in  the 
courtyard  and  under  the  open  sky,  a  deep  sigh  broke  from 
her  very  heart. 

"Oh,  will  a  whole  life  of  love  and  devotion  suffice  to 
repay  my  Ginevra  for  her  courage  and  tenderness?"  said 
Luigi. 

At  these  words,  spoken  with  tears  of  joy,  the  bride  forgot 
all  her  suffering,  for  she  had  suffered  in  showing  herself  to 
the  world,  claiming  a  happiness  which  her  parents  refused  to 
sanction. 

**  Why  do  men  try  to  come  between  us  ?  "  she  said,  with  a 
simplicity  of  feeling  that  enchanted  Luigi. 

Gladness  made  them  more  light-hearted.  They  saw  neither 
the  sky,  nor  the  earth,  nor  the  houses,  and  flew  on  wings  to 
the  church.  At  last  they  found  themselves  in  a  small,  dark 
chapel,  and  in  front  of  a  humble  altar  where  an  old  priest 
married  them.  There,  as  at  the  mayor's,  they  were  pursued 
by  the  two  weddings  that  persecuted  them  with  their  splendor. 
The  church,  filled  with  friends  and  relations,  rang  with  the 
noise  made  by  carriages,  beadles,  porters,  and  priests.  Altars 
glittered  with  ecclesiastical  magnificence ;  the  crowns  of 
orange-blossom  that  decked  the  statues  of  the  Virgin  seemed 
quite  new.  Nothing  was  to  be  seen  but  flowers,  with  per- 
fumes, gleaming  tapers,  and  velvet  cushions  embroidered  with 
gold.     God  seemed  to  have  a  share  in  this  rapture  of  a  day. 

When  the  symbol  of  eternal  union  was  to  be  held  above 
the  heads  of  Luigi  and  Ginevra — the  yoke  of  white  satin 
which  for  some  is  so  soft,  so  bright,  so  light,  and  for  the 
greater  number  is  made  of  lead — the  priest  looked  round  in 
vain  for  two  young  boys  to  fill  the  happy  office ;  two  of  the 
witnesses  took  their  place.  The  priest  gave  the  couple  a 
hasty  discourse  on  the  dangers  of  life,  and  on  the  duties  they 
must  one  day  inculcate  in  their  children,  and  he  here  took 
occasion  to  insinuate  a  reflection  on  the  absence  of  Ginevra's 
parents ;  then  having  united  them  in  the  presence  of  God,  as 


THE    VENDETTA.  369 

the  mayor  had  united  them  in  the  presence  of  the  law,  he 
ended  the  mass,  and  left  them. 

"God  bless  them,"  said  Vergniaud  to  the  mason  at  the 
church-door.  "  Never  were  two  creatures  better  made  for 
each  other.  That  girl's  parents  are  wretches.  I  know  no 
braver  soldier  than  Colonel  Luigi !  If  all  the  world  had 
behaved  as  he  did,  L'autre^  would  still  be  with  us." 

The  soldier's  blessing,  the  only  one  breathed  for  them  this 
day,  fell  like  balm  on  Ginevra's  heart. 

They  all  parted  with  shaking  of  hands,  and  Luigi  cordially 
thanked  his  landlord. 

"  Good-by,  old  fellow,"  said  Luigi  to  the  quartermaster. 
**  And  thank  you." 

"At  your  service,  colonel,  soul  and  body,  horses  and 
chaises — all  that  is  mine  is  yours." 

"  How  well  he  loves  you  !  "  said  Ginevra. 

Luigi  eagerly  led  his  wife  home  to  the  house  they  were  to 
live  in ;  they  soon  reached  the  modest  apartment,  and  there, 
when  the  door  was  closed,  Luigi  took  her  in  his  arms,  ex- 
claiming, "  Oh,  my  Ginevra — for  you  are  mine  now — here  is 
our  real  festival!  Here,"  he  went  on,  "all  will  smile 
on  us." 

Together  they  went  through  the  three  rooms  which  com- 
posed their  dwelling.  The  entrance  hall  served  as  drawing- 
room  and  dining-room.  To  the  right  was  a  bedroom,  to  the 
left  a  sort  of  large  closet  which  Luigi  had  arranged  for  his 
beloved  wife,  where  she  found  easels,  her  paint-box,  some 
casts,  models,  lay  figures,  pictures,  portfolios ;  in  short,  all  the 
apparatus  of  an  artist. 

"  Here  I  shall  work,"  said  she,  with  childlike  glee. 

She  looked  for  a  long  time  at  the  paper  and  the  furniture, 
constantly  turning  to  Luigi  to  thank  him,  for  there  was  a 
kind  of  magnificence  in  this  humble  retreat ;  a  bookcase  con- 
tained Ginevra's  favorite  books,  and  there  was  a  piano.     She 
*  The  other :  Napoleon. 
24 


376  THE    VENDETTA. 

sat  down  on  an  ottoman,  drew  Luigi  to  her  side,  and  clasping 
his  hand,  "You  have  such  good  taste,"  said  she,  in  a  caress- 
ing tone. 

"  Your  words  make  me  very  happy,"  he  replied. 

"But  come,  let  us  see  everything,"  said  Ginevra,  from 
whom  Luigi  had  hitherto  kept  the  secret  of  this  charming 
little  home. 

They  went  into  a  bridal  chamber  that  was  as  fresh  and 
white  as  a  maiden. 

"  Oh  !  come  away,"  said  Luigi,  laughing. 

"But  I  must  see  everything,"  and  Ginevra  imperiously 
went  on,  examining  all  the  furniture  with  the  curiosity  of  an 
antiquary  studying  a  medal.  She  touched  tlie  silk  stuff  and 
scrutinized  everything  with  the  childlike  delight  of  a  bride 
turning  over  the  treasures  of  the  wedding  basket  brought  her 
by  her  husband. 

"  We  have  begun  by  ruining  ourselves,"  she  said  in  a  half- 
glad,  half-regretful  tone. 

"  It  is  true ;  all  my  arrears  of  pay  are  there,"  replied  Luigi. 
"  I  sold  it  to  a  good  fellow  named  Gigonnet." 

"Why?"  she  asked,  in  a  reproachful  voice,  which  be- 
trayed, however,  a  secret  satisfaction.  "  Do  you  think  I 
should  be  less  happy  under  a  bare  roof?  Still,"  she  went  on, 
"  it  is  all  very  pretty,  and  it  is  ours  !  " 

Luigi  looked  at  lier  with  such  enthusiasm  that  she  cast  down 
her  eyes,  and  said,  "  Let  us  see  the  rest." 

Above  these  three  rooms,  in  the  attics,  were  a  workroom 
for  Luigi,  a  kitchen,  and  a  servant's  room.  Ginevra  was 
content  with  her  little  domain,  though  the  view  was  limited 
by  the  high  wall  of  a  neighboring  house,  and  the  courtyard 
on  which  the  rooms  looked  was  gloomy.  But  the  lovers  were 
so  glad  of  heart,  hope  so  beautified  the  future,  that  they  would 
see  nothing  but  enchantment  in  their  mysterious  dwelling. 
They  were  buried  in  this  huge  house,  lost  in  the  immensity 
of  Paris,  like  two  pearls  in  their  shell,  in  the  bosom  of  the 


THE    VENDETTA.  871 

deep  sea.  For  any  one  else  it  would  have  been  a  prison  :  to 
them  it  was  paradise. 

The  first  days  of  their  married  life  were  given  to  love ;  it 
was  difficult  for  them  to  devote  themselves  at  once  to  work, 
and  they  could  not  resist  the  fascination  of  their  mutual  pas- 
sion. Luigi  would  recline  for  hours  at  his  wife's  feet, 
admiring  the  color  of  her  hair,  the  shape  of  her  forehead, 
the  exquisite  setting  of  her  eyes,  the  purity  and  whiteness  of 
the  arched  brow  beneath  which  they  slowly  rose  or  fell,  ex- 
pressing the  happiness  of  satisfied  love.  Ginevra  stroked  her 
Luigi's  locks,  never  tiring  of  gazing  at  what  she  called,  in 
one  of  her  own  phrases,  the  belta  folgorante  of  the  young  man, 
and  his  delicately  cut  features ;  always  fascinated  by  the 
dignity  of  his  manners,  while  always  charming  him  by  the 
grace  of  her  own.  They  played  like  children  with  the  merest 
trifles,  these  trifles  always  brought  them  back  to  their  passion, 
and  they  ceased  playing  only  to  lapse  into  the  day  dreams  of 
far  niente.  An  air  sung  by  Ginevra  would  reproduce  for 
them  the  exquisite  hues  of  their  love. 

Or,  matching  their  steps  as  they  had  matched  their  souls, 
they  wandered  about  the  country,  finding  their  love  in  every- 
thing, in  the  flowers,  in  the  sky,  in  the  heart  of  the  fiery  glow 
of  the  setting  sun  ;  they  read  it  even  in  the  changing  clouds 
that  were  tossed  on  the  winds.  No  day  was  ever  like  the  last, 
their  love  continued  to  grow  because  it  was  true.  In  a  very 
few  days  they  had  proved  each  other,  and  had  instinctively 
perceived  that  their  souls  were  of  such  a  temper  that  their 
inexhaustible  riches  seemed  to  promise  ever-new  joys  for  the 
future.  This  was  love  in  all  its  fresh  candor,  with  its  endless 
prattle,  its  unfinished  sentences,  its  long  silences,  its  oriental 
restfulness  and  ardor.  Luigi  and  Ginevra  had  wholly  under- 
stood love.  Is  not  love  like  the  sea,  which,  seen  superficially 
or  in  haste,  is  accused  of  monotony  by  vulgar  minds,  while 
certain  privileged  beings  can  spend  all  their  life  admiring  it 
and  finding  in  it  changeful  phenomena  which  delight  them  ? 


372  THE    VENDETTA. 

One  day,  however,  prudence  dragged  the  young  couple 
from  their  Garden  of  Eden  ;  they  must  work  for  their 
living.  Ginevra,  who  had  a  remarkable  talent  for  copying 
pictures,  set  to  work  to  produce  copies,  and  formed  a  connec- 
tion among  dealers.  Luigi,  too,  eagerly  sought  some 
occupation ;  but  it  was  difficult  for  a  young  officer,  whose 
talents  were  limited  to  a  thorough  knowledge  of  tactics,  to  find 
any  employment  in  Paris.  At  last,  one  day  when,  weary  of 
his  vain  efforts,  he  felt  despair  in  his  soul  at  seeing  that  the 
whole  burthen  of  providing  for  their  existence  rested  on  Gi- 
nevra, it  occurred  to  him  that  he  might  earn  something  by 
his  handwriting,  which  was  beautiful.  With  a  perseverance, 
of  which  his  wife  had  set  the  example,  he  went  to  ask  work 
of  the  attorneys,  the  notaries,  and  the  pleaders  of  Paris. 
The  frankness  of  his  manners  and  his  painful  situation  greatly 
interested  people  in  his  favor,  and  he  got  enough  copying  to 
be  obliged  to  employ  youths  under  him.  Presently  he  took 
work  on  a  larger  scale.  The  income  derived  from  this  office- 
work  and  the  price  of  Ginevra's  paintings  put  the  young 
household  on  a  footing  of  comfort,  which  they  were  proud  of 
as  the  fruit  of  their  own  industry. 

This  was  the  sunniest  period  of  their  life.  The  days  glided 
swiftly  by  between  work  and  the  happiness  of  love.  In  the 
evening  after  working  hard  they  found  themselves  happy  in 
Ginevra's  cell.  Music  then  consoled  them  for  their  fatigues. 
No  shade  of  melancholy  ever  clouded  the  young  wife's  feat- 
ures, and  she  never  allowed  herself  to  utter  a  lament.  She 
could  always  appear  to  her  Luigi  with  a  smile  on  her  lips  and 
a  light  in  her  eyes.  Each  cherished  a  ruling  thought  which 
would  have  made  them  take  pleasure  in  the  hardest  toil : 
Ginevra  told  herself  she  was  working  for  Luigi,  and  Luigi  for 
Ginevra.  Sometimes,  in  her  husband's  absence,  the  young 
wife  would  think  of  the  perfect  joy  it  would  have  been  if  this 
life  of  love  might  have  been  spent  in  the  sight  of  her  father 
and  mother ;  then  she  would  sink  into  deep  melancholy,  and 


THE    VENDETTA.  373 

feel  all  the  pangs  of  remorse ;  dark  pictures  would  pass  like 
shadows  before  her  fancy ;  she  would  see  her  old  father  alone, 
or  her  mother  weeping  in  the  evenings,  and  hiding  her  tears 
from  the  inexorable  Piombo.  Those  two  grave,  white  heads 
would  suddenly  rise  up  before  her,  and  she  fancied  she  would 
never  see  them  again  but  in  the  fantastical  light  of  memory. 
This  idea  haunted  her  like  a  presentiment. 

She  kept  the  anniversary  of  their  wedding  by  giving  her 
husband  a  portrait  he  had  often  wished  for — that  of  his  Gi- 
nevra.  The  young  artist  had  never  executed  so  remarkable  a 
work.  Apart  from  the  likeness,  which  was"perfect,  the  bril- 
liancy of  her  beauty,  the  purity  of  her  feelings,  the  happiness 
of  love,  were  rendered  with  a  kind  of  magic.  The  master- 
piece was  hung  up  with  due  ceremony. 

They  spent  another  year  in  the  midst  of  comfort.  The  his- 
tory of  their  life  can  be  told  in  these  words:  "They  were 
happy."     No  event  occurred  deserving  to  be  related. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  winter  of  1819  the  picture-dealers 
advised  Ginevra  to  bring  them  something  else  than  copies,  as, 
in  consequence  of  the  great  competition,  they  could  no  longer 
sell  them  to  advantage.  Madame  Porta  acknowledged  the  mis- 
take she  had  made  in  not  busying  herself  with  genre  pictures, 
which  would  have  won  her  a  name  ;  she  undertook  to  paint 
portraits  ;  but  she  had  to  contend  against  a  crowd  of  artists 
even  poorer  than  herself.  However,  as  Luigi  and  Ginevra 
had  saved  some  money,  they  did  not  despair  of  the  future. 
At  the  end  of  this  same  winter  Luigi  was  working  without 
ceasing.  He,  too,  had  to  compete  with  rivals ;  the  price  of 
copying  had  fallen  so  low  that  he  could  no  longer  employ 
assistants,  and  was  compelled  to  give  up  more  time  to  his 
labor  to  earn  the  same  amount.  His  wife  had  painted  several 
pictures  which  were  not  devoid  of  merit,  but  dealers  were 
scarcely  buying  even  those  of  artists  of  repute.  Ginevra 
offered  them  for  almost  nothing,  and  could  not  sell  them. 

The  situation  of  the  household  was  something  terrible ;  the 


374  THE    VENDETTA. 

souls  of  the  husband  and  wife  floated  in  happiness,  love  loaded 
them  with  its  treasures  \  poverty  rose  up  like  a  skeleton  in  the 
midst  of  this  harvest  of  joys,  and  they  hid  their  alarms  from 
each  other.  When  Ginevra  felt  herself  on  the  verge  of  tears 
as  she  saw  Luigi  suffering,  she  heaped  caresses  on  him ;  Luigi, 
in  the  same  way,  hid  the  blackest  care  in  his  heart,  while 
expressing  the  fondest  devotion  to  Ginevra.  They  sought 
some  compensation  for  their  woes  in  the  enthusiasm  of  their 
feelings,  and  their  words,  their  joys,  their  playfulness,  were 
marked  by  a  kind  of  frenzy.  They  were  alarmed  at  the  future. 
What  sentiment  is  there  to  compare  in  strength  with  a  passion 
which  must  end  to-morrow — killed  by  death  or  necessity? 
When  they  spoke  of  their  poverty,  they  felt  the  need  of  de- 
luding each  other,  and  snatched  at  the  smallest  hope  with 
equal  eagerness. 

One  night  Ginevra  sought  in  vain  for  Luigi  at  her  side, 
and  got  up  quite  frightened.  A  pale  gleam  reflected  from 
the  dingy  wall  of  the  little  courtyard  led  her  to  guess  that 
her  husband  sat  up  to  work  at  night.  Luigi  waited  till  his 
wife  was  asleep  to  go  up  to  his  workroom.  The  clock  struck 
four.  Ginevra  went  back  to  bed  and  feigned  sleep ;  Luigi 
came  back,  overwhelmed  by  fatigue  and  want  of  sleep,  and 
Ginevra  gazed  sadly  at  the  handsome  face  on  which  labor 
and  anxiety  had  already  traced  some  lines. 

"And  it  is  for  me  that  he  spends  the  night  in  writing," 
she  thought,  and  she  wept. 

An  idea  came  to  dry  her  tears :  she  would  imitate  Luigi. 
That  same  day  she  went  to  a  rich  print-seller,  and  by  the 
help  of  a  letter  of  recommendation  to  him  that  she  had 
obtained  from  Elie  Magus,  a  picture-dealer,  she  got  some 
work  in  coloring  prints.  All  day  she  painted  and  attended 
to  her  household  cares,  then  at  night  she  colored  prints. 
These  two  beings,  so  tenderly  in  love,  got  into  bed  only  to 
get  out  of  it  again.  Each  pretended  to  sleep,  and  out  of 
Oevotion  to  the  other  stole  away  as  soon  as  one  had  deceived 


THE    VENDETTA.  875 

the  other.  One  night  Luigi,  knocked  over  by  a  sort  of  fever 
caused  by  work,  of  which  the  burthen  was  beginning  to  crush 
him,  threw  open  the  window  of  his  workroom  to  inhale  the 
fresh  morning  air,  and  shake  off  his  pain,  when,  happening  to 
look  down,  he  saw  the  light  thrown  on  the  wall  by  Ginevra's 
lamp ;  the  unhappy  man  guessed  the  truth  ;  he  went  down- 
stairs, walking  softly,  and  discovered  his  wife  in  her  studio 
coloring  prints. 

*'  Oh,  Ginevra !  "  he  exclaimed. 

She  started  convulsively  in  her  chair,  and  turned  scarlet. 

"Could  I  sleep  while  you  were  wearing  yourself  out  with 
work  ?  "  said  she. 

"  But  I  alone  have  a  right  to  work  so  hard." 

"And  can  I  sit  idle?"  replied  the  young  wife,  whose 
eyes  filled  with  tears,  "when  I  know  that  every  morsel  of 
bread  almost  costs  us  a  drop  of  your  blood  ?  I  should  die  if 
I  did  not  add  my  efforts  to  yours.  Ought  we  not  to  have 
everything  in  common,  pleasures  and  pains?" 

"She  is  cold!"  cried  Luigi,  in  despair.  "Wrap  your 
shawl  closer  over  your  chest,  my  Ginevra,  the  night  is  damp 
and  chilly." 

They  went  to  the  window,  the  young  wife  leaning  her  head 
on  her  beloved  husband's  shoulder,  he  with  his  arm  round 
her,  sunk  in  deep  silence,  and  watching  the  sky  which  dawn 
was  slowly  lighting  up. 

Gray  clouds  swept  across  in  quick  succession,  and  the  east 
grew  brighter  by  degrees. 

"See,"  said  Ginevra,  "it  is  a  promise — we  shall  be 
happy." 

"Yes,  in  heaven!"  replied  Luigi,  with  a  bitter  smile. 
"  Oh,  Ginevra  !  you  who  deserved  all  the  riches  of  earth " 

"  I  have  your  heart !  "  said  she  in  a  glad  tone. 

"Ah,  and  I  do  not  complain,"  he  went  on,  clasping  her 
closely  to  him.  And  he  covered  the  delicate  face  with  kisses; 
it  was  already  beginning  to  lose  the  freshness  of  youth,  but 


S7»  THE    VENDETTA. 

the  expression  was  so  tender  and  sweet  that  he  could  never 
look  at  it  without  feeling  comforted. 

"  How  still  !  "  said  Ginevra.  "  I  enjoy  sitting  late,  my 
dearest.  The  majesty  of  night  is  really  contagious;  it  is  im- 
pressive, inspiring ;  there  is  something  strangely  solemn  in 
the  thought :   all  sleeps,  but  I  am  awake." 

"Oh,  my  Ginevra,  I  feel,  not  for  the  first  time,  the  refined 
grace  of  your  soul — but,  see,  this  is  daybreak,  come  and 
sleep. ' ' 

"Yes,"  said  she,  "if  I  am  not  the  only  one  to  sleep.  I 
was  miserable  indeed  the  night  when  I  discovered  that  my 
Luigi  was  awake  and  at  work  without  me." 

The  valor  with  which  the  young  people  defied  misfortune 
for  some  time  found  a  reward.  But  the  event  which  usually 
crowns  the  joys  of  a  household  was  destined  to  be  fatal  to 
them.  Ginevra  gave  birth  to  a  boy,  who,  to  use  a  common 
phrase,  was  as  beautiful  as  the  day.  The  feeling  of  mother- 
hood doubled  the  young  creature's  strength.  Luigi  borrowed 
money  to  defray  the  expenses  of  her  confinement.  Thus,  just 
at  first,  she  did  not  feel  all  the  painfulness  of  their  situation, 
and  the  young  parents  gave  themselves  up  to  the  joy  of  rear- 
ing a  child.  This  was  their  last  gleam  of  happiness.  Like 
two  swimmers  who  unite  their  forces  to  stem  a  current,  the 
Corsicans  at  first  struggled  bravely ;  but  sometimes  they  gave 
themselves  up  to  an  apathy  resembling  the  torpor  that  precedes 
death,  and  they  were  soon  obliged  to  sell  their  little  treasures. 

Poverty  suddenly  stood  before  them,  not  hideous,  but 
humbly  attired,  almost  pleasant  to  endure ;  there  was  noth- 
ing appalling  in  her  voice ;  she  did  not  bring  despair  with 
her,  nor  spectres,  nor  squalor,  but  she  made  them  forget  the 
traditions  and  the  habit  of  comfort ;  she  broke  the  mainsprings 
of  pride.  Then  came  misery  in  all  its  horror,  reckless  of  her 
rags,  and  trampling  every  human  feeling  under  foot.  Seven 
or  eight  months  after  the  birth  of  little  Bartolomeo  it  would 
have  been  difficult  to  recoj^nize  the  original  of  the  beautifi;! 


THE    VENDETTA.  377 

portrait,  the  sole  adornment  of  their  bare  room,  in  the  mother 
who  was  suckling  a  sickly  baby.  Without  any  fire  in  bitter 
winter  weather,  Ginevra  saw  the  soft  outlines  of  her  face 
gradually  disappear,  her  cheeks  became  as  white  as  porcelain, 
her  eyes  colorless,  as  though  the  springs  of  life  were  drying 
up  in  her.  And  watching  her  starved  and  pallid  infant,  she 
suffered  only  in  his  young  misery,  while  Luigi  had  not  the 
heart  even  to  smile  at  his  boy. 

"I  have  scoured  Paris,"  he  said  in  a  hollow  voice.  "I 
know  no  one,  and  how  can  I  dare  beg  of  strangers  ?  Verg- 
niaud,  the  horse-breeder,  my  old  comrade  in  Egypt,  is  impli- 
cated in  some  conspiracy,  and  has  been  sent  to  prison  ;  besides, 
he  had  loaned  me  all  he  had  to  lend.  As  to  the  landlord,  he 
has  not  asked  me  for  any  rent  for  more  than  a  year." 

"  But  we  do  not  want  for  anything,"  Ginevra  gently  an- 
swered, with  an  affectation  of  calmness. 

"Each  day  brings  some  fresh  difficulty,"  replied  Luigi, 
with  horror. 

Luigi  took  all  Ginevra's  paintings,  the  portrait,  some  furni- 
ture which  they  yet  could  dispense  with,  and  sold  them  all 
for  a  mere  trifle ;  the  money  thus  obtained  prolonged  their 
sufferings  for  a  little  while.  During  these  dreadful  days 
Ginevra  showed  the  sublime  heights  of  her  character,  and  the 
extent  of  her  resignation.  She  bore  the  inroads  of  suffering 
with  stoical  firmness.  Her  vigorous  soul  upheld  her  under  all 
ills ;  with  a  weak  hand  she  worked  on  by  her  dying  child,  ful- 
filled her  household  duties  with  miraculous  activity,  and  was 
equal  to  everything.  She  was  even  happy  when  she  saw  on 
Luigi's  lips  a  smile  of  surprise  at  the  look  of  neatness  she 
contrived  to  give  to  the  one  room  to  which  they  had  been 
reduced. 

"I  have  kept  you  a  piece  of  bread,  dear,"  she  said  one 
evening  when  he  came  in  tired. 

"And  you?" 

"I  have  dined,  dear  Luigi;  I  want  nothing."     And  the 


378  THE    VENDETTA. 

sweet  expression  of  her  face,  even  more  than  her  words,  urged 
him  to  accept  the  food  of  which  she  had  deprived  herself. 
Luigi  embraced  her  with  one  of  the  despairing  kisses  which 
friends  gave  each  other  in  1 793  as  they  mounted  the  scaffold 
together.  In  such  moments  as  these  two  human  creatures  see 
each  other  heart  to  heart.  Thus  the  unhappy  Luigi,  under- 
standing at  once  that  his  wife  was  fasting,  felt  the  fever  that 
was  undermining  her ;  he  shivered,  and  went  out  on  the  pre- 
text of  pressing  business,  for  he  would  rather  have  taken  the 
most  insidious  poison  than  escape  death  by  eating  the  last 
morsel  of  bread  in  the  house. 

He  wandered  about  Paris  among  the  smart  carriages,  in  the 
midst  of  the  insulting  luxury  that  is  everywhere  flaunted ;  he 
hurried  past  the  shops  of  the  money-changers  where  gold 
glitters  in  the  window  ;  finally,  he  determined  to  sell  himself, 
to  offer  himself  as  a  substitute  for  the  conscription,  hoping  by 
this  sacrifice  to  save  Ginevra,  and  that  during  his  absence  she 
might  be  taken  into  favor  again  by  Bartolomeo.  So  he  went 
in  search  of  one  of  the  men  who  deal  in  these  white  slaves, 
and  felt  a  gleam  of  happiness  at  recognizing  in  him  an  old 
officer  of  the  Imperial  Guard. 

"For  two  days  I  have  eaten  nothing,"  he  said,  in  a  slow, 
weak  voic6.  "  My  wife  is  dying  of  hunger,  and  never  utters 
a  complaint ;  she  will  die,  I  believe,  with  a  smile  on  her  lips. 
For  pity's  sake,  old  comrade,"  he  added,  with  a  forlorn 
smile,  "pay  for  me  in  advance;  I  am  strong,  I  have  left  the 
service,  and  I ■" 

The  officer  gave  Luigi  something  on  account  of  the  sum  he 
promised  to  get  for  him.  The  unhappy  man  laughed  con- 
vulsively when  he  grasped  a  handful  of  gold-pieces,  and  ran 
home  as  fast  as  he  could  go,  panting,  and  exclaiming  as  he 
went,  "  Oh,  my  Ginevra — Ginevra  !  " 

It  was  growing  dark  by  the  time  he  reached  home.  He 
went  in  softly,  fearing  to  overexcite  his  wife,  whom  he  had 
left  so  weak ;  the  last  pale  rays  of  sunshine,  coming  in  at  the 


THE    VENDETTA.  379 

dormer  window,  fell  on  Ginevra's  face.  She  was  asleep  in 
her  chair  with  her  baby  at  her  breast. 

"Wake  up,  my  darling,"  said  he,  without  noticing  the 
attitude  of  the  child,  wliich  seemed  at  this  moment  to  have  a 
supernatural  glory. 

On  hearing  his  voice,  the  poor  mother  opened  her  eyes, 
met  Luigi's  look,  and  smiled  ;  but  Luigi  gave  a  cry  of  terror. 
He  hardly  recognized  his  half-crazed  wife,  to  whom  he  showed 
the  gold,  with  a  gesture  of  savage  vehemence. 

Ginevra  began  to  laugh  mechanically,  but  suddenly  she 
cried  in  a  terrible  voice,  "  Luigi,  the  child  is  cold  !  " 

She  looked  at  the  infant  and  fainted.  Little  Bartoloraeo 
was  dead. 

Luigi  took  his  wife  in  his  arms,  without  depriving  her  of 
the  child,  which  she  clutched  to  her  with  incomprehensible 
strength,  and  after  laying  her  on  the  bed  he  went  out  to  call 
for  help. 

"Great  heaven  !  "  he  exclaimed  to  his  landlord,  whom  he 
met  on  the  stairs,  "I  have  money,  and  my  child  is  dead  of 
hunger,  and  my  wife  is  dying.     Help  us." 

\\\  despair  he  went  back  to  his  wife,  leaving  the  worthy 
builder  and  various  neighbors  to  procure  whatever  might 
relieve  the  misery  of  which  till  now  they  had  known  nothing, 
so  carefully  had  the  Corsicans  concealed  it  out  of  a  feeling  of 
pride.  Luigi  had  tossed  the  gold-pieces  on  the  floor,  and 
was  kneeling  by  the  bed  where  his  wife  lay. 

"  Father,  take  charge  of  my  son,  who  bears  your  name  !  " 
cried  Ginevra  in  her  delirium. 

"  Oh,  my  angel,  be  calm,"  said  Luigi,  kissing  her,  "better 
days  await  us!"  His  voice  and  embrace  restored  her  to 
some  composure. 

"Oh,  my  Luigi,"  she  went  on,  looking  at  him  with  extra- 
ordinary fixity,  "  listen  to  me.  I  feel  that  I  am  dying.  My 
death  is  quite  natural.  I  have  been  suffering  too  much  ;  and 
then  happiness  so  great  as  mine  had  to  be  paid  for.     Yes,  my 


380  THE    VENDETTA. 

Luigi,  be  comforted.  I  have  been  so  happy  that  if  I  had  to 
begin  life  again,  I  would  again  accept  our  lot.  I  am  a  bad 
mother;  I  weep  for  you  even  more  than  for  my  child.  My 
child !  "  she  repeated  in  a  full,  deep  voice.  Two  tears 
dropped  from  her  dying  eyes,  and  she  suddenly  clasped  yet 
closer  the  little  body  she  could  not  warm.  "  Give  my  hair 
to  my  father  in  memory  of  his  Ginevra,"  she  added.  "Tell 
him  that  I  never,  never,  accused  him " 

Her  head  fell  back  on  her  husband's  arm. 

"No,  no,  you  cannot  die  !  "  cried  Luigi.  "A  doctor  is 
coming.  We  have  food.  Your  father  will  receive  you  into 
favor.  Prosperity  is  dawning  on  us.  Stay  with  us,  angel  of 
beauty  !  " 

But  that  faithful  and  loving  heart  was  growing  cold.  Gi- 
nevra instinctively  turned  her  eyes  on  the  man  she  adored, 
though  she  was  no  longer  conscious  of  anything  ;  confused 
images  rose  before  her  mind,  fast  losing  all  memories  of  earth. 
She  knew  that  Luigi  was  there,  for  she  clung  more  and  more 
tightly  to  his  ice-cold  hand,  as  if  to  hold  herself  up  above  a 
gulf  into  which  she  feared  to  fall. 

"You  are  cold,  dear,"  she  said  presently;  "I  will  warm 
you." 

She  tried  to  lay  her  husband's  hand  over  her  heart,  but  she 
was  dead.  Two  doctors,  a  priest,  and  some  neighbors  came 
in  at  this  moment,  bringing  everything  that  was  needful  to 
save  the  lives  of  the  young  couple  and  to  soothe  their  despair. 
At  first  these  intruders  made  a  good  deal  of  noise,  but  when 
they  were  all  in  the  room  an  appalling  silence  fell. 

While  this  scene  was  taking  place  Bartolomeo  and  his  wife 
were  sitting  in  their  old  armchairs,  each  at  one  corner  of  the 
immense  fireplace  that  warmed  the  great  drawing-room  of 
their  mansion.  The  clock  marked  midnight.  It  was  long 
since  the  old  couple  had  slept  well.  At  this  moment  they 
were  silent,  like  two  old  folks  in  their  second  childhood,  who 


THE    VENDETTA.  381 

look  at  everything  and  see  nothing.  The  deserted  room,  to 
them  full  of  memories,  was  feebly  lighted  by  a  single  lamp 
fast  dying  out.  But  for  the  dancing  flames  on  the  hearth  they 
would  have  been  in  total  darkness.  One  of  their  friends  had 
just  left  them,  and  the  chair  on  which  he  had  sat  during  his 
visit  stood  between  the  old  people.  Piombo  had  already  cast 
more  than  one  glance  at  this  chair,  and  these  glances,  fraught 
with  thoughts,  followed  each  other  like  pangs  of  remorse,  for 
the  empty  chair  was  Ginevra's.  Elisa  Piombo  watched  the 
expressions  that  passed  across  her  old  husband's  pale  face. 
Though  she  was  accustomed  to  guess  the  Corsican's  feelings 
from  the  violent  changes  in  his  features,  they  were  to-night 
by  turns  so  threatening  and  so  sad  that  she  failed  to  read  this 
inscrutable  soul. 

Was  Bartolomeo  yielding  to  the  overwhelming  memories 
aroused  by  that  chair  ?  Was  he  pained  at  perceiving  that  it 
had  been  used  by  a  stranger  for  the  first  time  since  his 
daughter's  departure?  Had  the  hour  of  mercy,  the  hour  so 
long  and  vainly  hoped  for,  struck  at  last  ? 

These  reflections  agitated  the  heart  of  Elisa  Piombo.  For 
a  moment  her  husband's  face  was  so  terrible  that  she  quaked 
at  having  ventured  on  so  innocent  a  device  to  give  her  an 
opportunity  of  speaking  of  Ginevra.  At  this  instant  the 
northerly  blast  flung  the  snowflakes  against  the  shutters  with 
such  violence  that  the  old  people  could  hear  their  soft  pelting. 
Ginevra's  mother  bent  her  head  to  hide  her  tears  from  her 
husband.  Suddenly  a  sigh  broke  from  the  old  man's  heart ; 
his  wife  looked  at  him  ;  he  was  downcast.  For  the  second 
time  in  three  years  she  ventured  to  speak  to  him  of  his 
daughter. 

"  Supposing  Ginevra  were  cold  !  "  she  exclaimed  in  an 
undertone.  "  Or  perhaps  she  is  hungry,"  she  went  on.  The 
Corsican  shed  a  tear.  "  She  has  a  child,  and  cannot  suckle 
it,  her  milk  is  dried  up,"  the  mother  added  vehemently,  with 
an  accent  of  despair. 


382  THE    VENDETTA. 

"  Let  her  come ;  oh,  let  her  come  !  "  cried  Piombo.  "  Oh, 
my  darling  child,  you  have  conquered  me." 

The  mother  hastily  rose,  as  if  to  go  fetch  her  daughter.  At 
this  instant  the  door  was  flung  open,  and  a  man,  whose  face 
had  lost  all  semblance  of  humanity,  suddenly  stood  before 
them. 

*'  Dead  !  Our  families  were  doomed  to  exterminate  each 
other ;  for  this  is  all  that  remains  of  her,"  he  said,  laying  on 
the  table  Ginevra's  long,  black  hair. 

The  two  old  people  started,  as  though  they  had  been  struck 
by  a  thunderbolt ;  they  could  not  see  Luigi. 

**  He  has  spared  us  a  pistol-shot,  for  he  is  dead,"  said 
Bartolomeo  deliberately,  as  he  looked  on  the  ground. 

Paris,  January,  1830. 


UCSB  LIBRAKI 


from  which  It  was  borrowea. 


" ";:  •!"  ""•  ">ii  III"  mil  iiiii  i 

000  525  465 


